Keith White scores a moral victory in the race 1 By web editor Rob Allender & Marion Allender

(Photo by Michelle Beverley-Jones of Purple M Photo)

On a sunny May weekend, Keith White driving his BMW Z4 silhouette overcame a lowly grid position to be the first points scorer and pick up a useful points haul, in the first round of the 2014 Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship at Pembrey on Sunday. Whites’ practice was restricted to 2 laps as he sensed a wheel-bearing about to break up, and he found himself down in 7^th place on the grid. On pole position was visiting driver Dave Krayem who was giving his Dutch Supercar Ginetta G50 a trial run. The first of the championship point scoring runners, was 2013 Champion Michael Cond in 2^nd place with Neil Watts on pole position in Class CS and 3^rd on the Grid. Endaf Owens had the Class D pole in 4^th  & was less than a second behind. Also in the frame was Geraint Rees who was 5^th fastest in his Westfield SEi with Andy Williams close by in 6^th place. Keith was only 7^th fastest, but in 8^th place was a new combination of Martin ‘Old man’ Davies who was having a run out in his son Jasons’ 2 wheel drive Ford Sapphire, as his own 4wd car was not ready, and found it hard to get used to the benefits of rear wheel drive!  Jason was on hand to give his dad some guidance! Glynne Jones was 9^th with a time of 69.25 secs. This put his BMW 320 ahead of a group of cars all within 1  second of each other. Ken James was 10^th with his Loco Hornet. 11^th was Rhodri Jenkins, who was still coming to terms with the new turbo on his Honda Civic and he had Rufus on hand to try & fix the problems, which seem to centre on the pipework carrying the turbo boost. 12^th was Melissa in the Moto Mini, with Mike Edgell (Class AS) next in his Classic Mini and Roger Dowden made up the runners in the 69 second bracket in 14^th place. Daniel Burt, a driver new to the championship, was in 16^th place and was the pole man for Class BT in his Fiat Punto, which is I think a new car for the championship. The BT class was in a tight bunch on 74 seconds, with Phil Bendall 16^th in his Ford Fiesta but only 9/10ths faster than Huw Morgans’ much improved Honda Civic Type R. Verity Banks and her MG ZR was 18^th. The new for 2014, white line rules, were the subject of much unhappiness, with several drivers having their lap times disallowed for exceeding the track limits.

Race 1 – 15 minutes + 1 Lap - Sunday May 18th Pembrey circuit.

It was nice to see Clive Hayes (2000 WSSCC Champion & WRDA stalwart)  at the circuit and taking an interest in proceedings, as the current race format was his idea, meant to give everyone regardless of their car, at least 15 minutes track time. It has proved to be a very good idea, Well done Clive! As the cars left on their warm up lap we lost Geraint Rees when either his clutch or his gearbox input shaft broke.

At the start of the race, Mike Cond in his Sylva Riot took the lead from the fast starting Mini of Endaf Owens, with Dave Krayem slow away. Krayem re-asserted himself on lap 2 but the battle between the Championship runners continued. Cond was overtaken by the little high spec Mini of Owens, and then Keith White. 

Endaf keeps Keith on his toes! (Photo by Michelle Beverley-Jones of Purple M Photo)

However Owens, whose motto is ‘Let the mini see the big cars’ harried White mercilessly until his car mysteriously stopped! This left White in the lead of the championship runners, but some distance behind Krayem who was not scoring any points. Mike Cond was 2^nd   with Neil Watts 3^rd but both leading their own classes. In 4^th place, Martin Davies was still finding his feet in Jason’s 2 wheel drive Ford Sapphire Turbo and was under pressure from Andy Williams and his usual non- turbo 2 wheel drive Ford Sapphire, until a late race slide by Andy gave Martin some respite. Martin commented ‘Andy was keeping me honest!’ Rhodri, Ken James and Glynne were running on their own in 7^th 8^th  & 9^th places. However Mike Edgell, Roger Dowden & Melissa were having a ding-ding battle. Melissa passed Roger early on to pressure Mike, who retired on lap 5 with a big hole in his gearbox casing, after something let go! Melissa and Roger then had a good dice with Roger passing Melissa on lap 11, before retiring with the Darrian only able to get one gear. This meant there were no finishers on Class AS, although Roger will have scored one point for the Class AS fastest lap! Meanwhile Rhodri was getting slower as his turbo pipe had split and he was left with his car in low compression mode and trailing some smoke. This caused the stewards to show Rhodri (car no. 28) a caution flag. Rhodri retired to the paddock to see if some more robust pressure pipes could be found. However the flag caused some confusion in the Class BT battle where Phil Bendall. Daniel Burt & Huw Morgan were at hammer & tongs with the cars swapping places almost on a lap by lap basis.

Daniel pressures Phil early on!

Watch Huws' in-car it on Utube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIKdUCjY4A0  Daniel got into the lead on lap 2 but was then 3^rd in class a lap later! However later on, Danny suddenly dropped back, and although he tried to close back up the Phil & Huw who were having a right duel, the tow had been broken. Afterwards Daniel (car no 128) explained ‘I saw the flag at the start line (shown to Rhodri in car 28) and I thought there was something wrong with my car! Then I thought ‘Hang on, I’m car 128 not 28! I tried to speed up again, but Huw and Phil were too far ahead!’ After a tremendous fight Phil Bendall took the Class BT win in 10^th place, Huw in 11^th place was second in Class BT, but took the extra point for the class fastest lap! Danny was 12^th and Verity was the last finisher, as Dave Krayem crossed the line to bring the race to a close. Keith was the first points scorer, with Mike Cond in 2nd place. Mike found himself named as 'Driver of the Day', by the marshals! Again the white line rules were the subject of unhappiness, with 2 drivers having 5 seconds added to their race times for exceeding the track limits, although thankfully it didn't seem to cost anyone a postion or any points.

Times & results for UK events from www.tsl-timing.com

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Race 2 report.