Race 2 by web editor Rob Allender

There were plenty of ‘spectators’ milling around in paddock 2 in the lunch break. Rhodri came down in his Gullwing Mercedes supercar, and was drafted into driving the Porsche Cayman pace-car. Martin Davies, Sue and the family came down too.  Jason was looking forward to his next outing in the Burton Power BOSS Championship at far-far-away Cadwell Park! A leaking turbo pipe was the cause of his exit from the recent televised Silverstone round and the turbo manufacturers have supplied a new set of clips which they are sure will prevent it happening again! Giles Beck was also on hand to check out the scene, as was the Reigning Champion Chris Morris.  Lets’ hope they can all bring their racing cars next time!

The race 15 minutes + 1 lap

Jim Lyons was the only non-starter as Rhodri led the grid around for the start of the race, and Endaf was quickest away with Keith White and Mike Cond in hot pursuit! Neil Watts lead Geraint initially but then it was Neils’ turn to mount a recovery drive! This let Andy Williams up into 4^th place! Keith White soon established himself back in the lead, but behind him, Endaf & Mike Cond had the most tremendous dice for 2^nd place that lasted the whole race long!

It was absolutely spellbinding stuff, although in this race the action at the back of the pack between the Class BT saloons was if anything even more tremendous! But more of that later, as once more there was tremendous racing all through the grid! 

Geraint Rees, Andy Williams and Ken James had their own little battle as did Mellissa, Glynne and Roger! Paul Flinders established himself and his Toyota MR2 into the lead of class BT, and Neil Watts was making steady progress during his recovery drive! Geraint found himself unchallenged in 4^th place, taking a Class CS win double; but behind him Neil Watts was now closing on Ken James who was then in 5^th place! Ken could see the challenge coming and was stung into action, setting the Loco Hornets’ fastest lap of the race on Lap 10! However although Neil  came out of left field in the Westfield to take 5^th place, Ken chased him all the way to the end with only 7/10s of second separating  the Pembrokeshire pair! Andy Williams kept himself awake with some nice power slides out of Hatchets once Neil Watts had squeezed by, and ended up in 7^th place!

In 8^th place was Mellissa Lufferelli , who this time got the better of Glynne, who at times was at his sideways best, with only 8/10ths separating them at the end! Mellissa was another driver to set their fastest lap of the race late on, and her pace almost took her close to lapping her brother Tyrone! In contrast both Roger Dowden & Paul Flinders had quiet races to take the Class AS & BT wins respectively. 

Not having quiet races were the BT Saloon boys! If anyone thought that there couldn’t be a better race than the 3 car scrap we saw in race one, then they would have been wrong! Perhaps the only thing that could be better than 3 cars fighting between themselves, was 4 cars fighting between themselves; and that’s exactly what we got as Tyrone Lufferelli joined in the fight! With his car now sorted, there were now 4 different cars fighting over 12^th place, and the action was frantic with places being swapped and re-swapped on almost every lap!  In 12^th place Huw Morgan again finished as the leading BT saloon  (although he was 2nd in the Class behind Paul Flinders)and Tyrone came from dead last on the grid to finish 13^th, less than a second behind Huw at the end. In 14^th place was Daniel Burt whose took his Punto to 14^th after a terrific dice with Phil Bendall, who may have taken a lot out of his tyres in race 1. Tyrone was given the ‘Driver of the Race’ award for his sterling efforts! Dad Fabio, was musing as to whether he could fit a trailer on the back of the teams transporter, in which case there could be 3 Lufferellis’ on the track soon! I can’t wait to see that!

So Keith smoked his way to his second win of the day, but only 4 seconds ahead of Endaf, who had Mike Cond in close attendance! Endaf though was not really satisfied, as Keith currently has the whip-hand in terms of horsepower and straight line speed and the suggestion is that Endaf might have to bring out something he has in the back of his workshop that could really compete with Keith! That would be interesting to see!

With so much good racing going on, as always, I can only give an impression from the side-lines. If I’ve missed anyone, made an error, or if you have a story to tell please let me know

The race results are available on the VSCC site at http://www.vscc.co.uk/vsccMedia/8975.pdf  but once again the dry data alone will not convey what was another excellent race in the history of the WRDA Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship.

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