Simply Unstoppable- Keith White leads from start to finish! (photo by Steve Williams)

Entry & Practice

The race - 15 minutes + 1 lap – Rolling StartThe race - 15 minutes + 1 lap – Rolling Start

 

Looming threat! Vaughan Fletcher fights his way his way from the back to snatch 3rd place on the last lap! (photo by Steve Williams)

There had been some sunshine earlier in the day, but later it had clouded in but without a hint of rain. With our Anniversary Cup race due to start at 17.45, it became apparent that the due to a few incidents in earlier races, that the programme was running late, and it was going to nail-biting time as to whether  or not we could get the race started.  In the end the clock stood at 17.55 as the cars set off for the green flag lap! By now there were 24 cars, as we were missing Glynne Jones who was out when an engine bearing started to go, but we had been joined by Endaf Evans, who decided to race after fitting a new engine to a Mini Miglia chassis at the circuit! Also joining us from the back was Vaughan Fletcher who had now repaired his Subaru and Fabio who decided he’d rather pick his way through from the back than get involved in a potential scrum with 20+ cars all trying to fit into Hatchets hairpin on lap 1!  I can see his point!

Anyway as the lights changed Keith & Dave were side by side into Hatchets but Keith was the first car out of Dibeni, followed by Ben Scrivens, Martin Davies and Dave Krayem,  and from then he was never headed! That’s not to say it was easy, as anytime you have 24 cars on the track, it requires your full attention! Keith confirmed ‘There is a big speed differential with some cars so you have to be careful, and sometimes I will hang back to make sure.’ 

Even so this was one of Keith’s dominant performances having taken the Golden 3 of Pole Position, Fastest Lap, and after 16 laps, an unchallenged Race Win! Behind him Ben Scrivens held 2^nd place with Martin Davies the meat in a Ginetta sandwich, with Dave Krayem behind him. That is until Ben tripped up when trying to lap a backmarker and spun onto the grass at the paddock turn. He got going again but lost quite a few places, before he regained the track and started his recovery drive, but more of that later! This left Martin Davies in 2^nd place with Dave Krayem in 3^rd, although the places changed when Martin saw Dave make a better exit to the kink, and Dave made a clean pass.

Martin was now 3^rd and in well in charge of the CS Class, or so he thought!  4^th place was a battle between CS Class runners Andy Williams, Damian Logatano & Ken James! Damian seemed to have found his feet, and was having an impressive run and took 4^th place from Andy who later pulled off onto the grass by the Rally-Cross track as he felt a front wheel bearing start to give up! Almost at the same time we lost Fabio Luffarelli with gearbox problems, although he had got as high as 10^th place before his race ended! Clive Hayes had retired to the paddock when the temperature gauge on the Mazda MX5 started to climb higher & higher, which is usually a sign of trouble!  Meanwhile Vaughan Fletcher was climbing through the field and had Damian and Ken in his sights! Endaf Owens was also on the rise. Endaf is a quick peddler of a car, as well as being a superb engineer, and he made his way up to finish in 8^th place, winning Class AS in the process! But on the way through he was involved with an intense midfield dice lead initially by the Honda Civic of Daryl Radford, who as well as Endaf had Roger Dowden, Sam Summerhayes, Giles Beck & Huw Morgan in tow, with only a couple of seconds covering all 6 of them! Tyrone was a few seconds back and he had new boy Willem Verhaak for company. Ian Fraser was keeping Craig Wright, Andrew Williams, Abdulah & Mark Harries for company at the back!

By lap 4 Keith White and the front runners had started to lap the field, and this was a cue for a shuffling of the pack, as the lower order cars tried to take advantage of the situation! In the end Josh Wright was an excellent 9^th, just over 1 second ahead of Sam Summerhayes & Roger Dowden, was in 11^th place and was the last runner on 15 laps!  Daryl Radford had been shuffled back to 12^th ahead of Giles Beck, who had Mark Harris as close company. In 16^th place Tyrone Luffarelli was only a few 10^ths ahead of Huw Morgan! Finding his feet, new boy Willem Verhaak was 17^th in his Mazda MX5 and the last driver on 14 laps!  Ian Fraser, and his Mini Miglia was 18^thand his driving found favour with the Marshals who decided the ‘Driver of the Race’  A disappointed Craig Wright was 19^th, Craig had been the early leader of the Championship, but found his BMW Compact un-driveable on the List 1a Uniroyal tyres he had! They were marked as ‘The Rain Tyre’ (Somewhat ironically it rained for an hour or so on Sunday after practice, but then it dried up!) Andrew E Williams was 20th with his Class AT MG ZR. Abdullah Al Thani in 22^nd, and the last finisher!

Meanwhile at the front as Keith stroked to a 3 second win over Dave K, it was all change for 3^rd place, in dramatic fashion! Martin Davies was happily winding the laps down as the Class AS leader, until his son Jason started to signal that his dad should start to pick up the pace! However his dad failed to see the emergency, ‘I thought Jason was trying to tell me that Ben Scrivens was getting close, but when I looked in my mirrors I couldn’t see him!’ However what Jason was trying to convey was that Vaughan Fletcher and his Scooby Do was now in 4^th place and closing in Martin and his Cossie! Vaughan banged in his fastest lap on lap 13 getting down to 61.627 seconds, (almost a second faster than Martins fastest time) and closed right up, passing Martin on the last lap to take 3^rd place by 3/10^ths.
 Ben Scrivens did recover to take 5^th place! 
Class Awards Gallery   Overall Awards Gallery  by Rob Allender