2015 WRDA News
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Huge Grid for final rounds in the
2015 Welsh Championship!
Pembrey
Sunday October 11th
- Autumn Truck-Fest
Entry &
Qualifying
With the weatherman predicting an end to the early October
sunshine, it was a bit of relief to find that although it wasn’t T shirt and
shorts weather, it was dry and not that cold! There were some indications that
Alan had managed to get the maximum allowed gird for Pembrey of 32 cars! However some late
withdrawals from Verity Banks (gearbox) & Endaf Owens, whose spaceframe Imp
failed to please the scrutineers, meant that there were 30 cars, including 5
guests in Class I.
(left) Phil Hanson & Tockwith Teams Audi R8
Big news in Class I, was the appearance the Tockwith Teams
entry of a Ginetta G50. for 17 year old Phil Hanson, who was looking to get
some signatures to upgrade his licence. However on the way down from North
Yorkshire, the car changed into an Audi R8 Ultra, which is the kind of beast
normally seen at Le Mans or in the Blancpain! (Dave Krayem fancied the prospect
of matching himself against the beast, and switched to Class I) The rest of the
grid was as per normal, except that Keith Butcher (Nissan Primera) joined us for
a late season run, and Neil Watts decided that he just had to get out there and
joined us too for his first race of the season!
With 32 cars on the track, Qualifying was a bit fraught at
times, and for most of the grid, the trick was to time their fastest run to the
times when a space appeared in front of them. There was a brief red flag
stoppage after Nick Rockes'off, and at the end of the session it was Martin Davies took pole with a
super time of 61.356 seconds! ‘I was near the front of the queue at the re-start
behind Keith Butcher and was able to use him as marker!’
Dave Krayem was 2nd fastest. Keith Butcher was
on the Class D pole in 3rd with Keith White,
a little unlucky to be 4th (2nd
in Class D). All 4 were under 62.00 secs! Neil Watts was 5th
in his Westfield SEiW on 62.155 secs alongside Fabio Lufferelli, who had a new
engine in his Moto Mini. Ben Scrivens was 7th with Andy Williams 8th!
In 9th place was Phil Hanson and the huge Audi R8 Ultra which dwarfed
Damian Longatano and his Westfield!
Ken James and Peter Hills (Class AS pole) were on row 6,
Dave Scarmanga & Sam Sumerhayes (Class AT pole) on row 7
For the other 8 rows please see
http://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=BARC/2015/154121wss.pdf
The Race – Rolling Start – 15
minutes plus 1 lap
Clerk of the Course Mike Skelton was very complementary about the quality of the rolling starts & racing in August and he can’t have had many complaints about this Sundays racing! As the lights changed, Martin Davies was straight into the lead, and he held sway from Dave K, Mr Butcher, and Mr White! Keith W soon asserted himself over Keith B and then starting to pressure Dave. It took him several laps to pass Daves’ Ginetta, and then it was ‘game on’ with an intense battle between Martin and his heavy metal turbo Cosworth and Keith’s’ svelte BMW silhouette!
From the outside, Martin seemed to have it under control, being just able to hold Keith at bay. However in the cockpit Martin could see the temperature gauge start to climb and on lap 9 he was heading to the pits! ‘It seems like it’s the head gasket. The gauge was up to 120 degrees and there were too many laps left!’ So this left Keith White in the lead from Dave Krayem and Keith Butcher. So it seemed that Keith was left to bring it home for his 6th win of the 2015 season, (or 8 if you count the Saturday races too), or was there a sting in the tail?
Behind the leaders there was action a plenty, as Neil Watts settled into 5th place, but he had Fabio, Ben Scrivens and Andy Williams on his tail! Later on, as Ben Scrivens moved on to pinch 3rd place from Keith Butcher, he was replaced by Damian Longatano. Damian was 7th with Fabio in 8th place and these were the only runners still on the same lap as the leader! With so many cars on the track, it didn’t take long for the lapping to start, and that would have a major impact on the result, as did running wide over the white lines!
Late in the race, Andy Williams was forced out with gearbox
problems, which ended his weekend. This left Alan Smith, a visitor
from Barnsley, as the only Ford left running in his Ka Sport!
Ken James finished in 8th place with his Locost,
ahead of Phil Hanson and his high cost Audi. Early on Phil & the Audi was being
baeten up in a big dice with Sam Summerhayes & Peter Hills!
Peter was leading Class AS, but he suddenly disappeared from the lap charts,
when his engine cut out! This was later traced to a fuse that has tripped, and a
simple re-set got Peter out for race 2. (Colin Dunn was the final non finisher,
also with electrical problems). Dave S and Glynne Jones were in a
Class CS dice, and Glynne got ahead at half distance, and went on to harry the
Audi and finished in 10th place! Mark Harris in
Endafs Honda Civic, was 12th after a
race long dice with Josh Wright and Sam Summerhayes. Ian
Fraser was 15th in his Mini and Tyrone Lufferalli in 16th
was the last driver on 15 laps.
Tyrone took over the lead of Class BT after Giles Beck
began to drop back as his tyres began to fade. After Peter Hills’ exit, Chris
Morris (17th)was in the Class AS lead, but he was being harried by
Roger Dowden(18th). Nick Rocke (19th) was stuck behind the
warring duo, and unable to challenge Tyrone! Giles Beck fell back to 20th,
just ahead of Wileem Verhaak (21st). It was Wileems luck day as it
was decided (with some prompting) to extend the awards in Class BT down to 4th
place, as there were 8 starters in the class! Huw Morgan and Susanne Jones had a
close battle for 22nd place (and 5th & 6th in
Class AT). Andrew Williams, Alan Smith and Holly Welch (7th in BT)
were the final finishers.
Back at the front, Dave Krayem had been stalking Keith
White for most of the way. Keith was able to keep 2 or 3
seconds ahead, depending on the traffic, but late in the race his lead dwindled
to 1.5 seconds as he was held up by backmarkers! However after the race Keith,
Ben Scrivens, Fabio, Ken James & Glynne Jones were all given a 5 second Palmer
penalty, ‘For exceeding the track limits!’ That’s crossing the white line to you
and me! Quite how many blades of grass were harmed in these incidents is not
known (or mown)! The major outcome was Keith lost his winning record, but kept
his class points. Still with only one race to go, Keith was set to retain the
Trophy for ‘Most wins in a season’ as he already has 5 wins to his name.