last update 24/05/2015

2015 Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship

Anniversary Cup – Saturday 23^rd May

Entry & Practice

First lap - Martin Davies leads lap 1

There was a pleasing number of entries for the non-championship Anniversary Cup bash on Saturday which was held under pleasant sunshine. (The Anniversary Cup  celebrates the 25^th year of the WSSCC and also the 25^th year since BARC took over Pembrey).

On Pole was Keith White and his BMW Z4 silhouette but alongside was Jason Davies who was making a dual-purpose, one-off special appearance, with the aim of testing the new configuration of his Sapphire Cossie and also racing against his dad Martin! All was not well with Martins car in practice, and in 3^rd place on the grid was Nick Holden, whose Ariel Atom was making it’s debut at Pembrey! The Atom has a stripped down look but was actually meant as a Road Car al la Lotus 7/Westfield but with an unique look! (It will qualify for Class D in the WSSCC races).  Martin Davies was 4^th having only managed a few laps before losing his power steering after a hose split! Ken James was on the 3^rd row with his Loco Hornet and was joined by fellow West Wales fresh air lover Damian Longotano and his Westfield, who looked like he was finding his racing feet.   Fabio Lufferelli and his class M Mini Silhouette was next up with Roger Dowden alongside with his Davrian.

Nick Rocke (Ford Fiesta Mk 4) was 9^th fastest and first of the 9 strong Class BT runners. Giles Beck was an interloper with his BMW 318. Giles famously has white end plates on his rear wing but there seemed to be so many new Black wings in evidence on a few other cars that you could have thought someone had bought a job lot, but actually they were all different!

 Josh Wright was having a fine debut with his Renault Megane and he was followed by Sussanne Jones (Lotus Elise) and Tyrone Lufferelli  (Peugeot 106 GTi)

Daryl Radford and his Class BT Honda Civic was another driver making his debut at Pembrey and Huw Morgan would have made an all Civic 7^th row but Huw suffering some damage that would rule him out for the weekend! Colin Dunn, Daniel Burt and Graham Welch completed the grid.  

 Andy Williams would miss the weekend  as he is still waiting for his engine to be repaired after his Castle Combe blow up.

The race – 15 minutes + 1 Lap – Rolling Start

As the grid passed the lights Martin Davies jumped up from Row 2 , as Jason headed Keith on the run to Hatchets, and he emerged out of Debeni Bend on the ragged edge, in the lead, but with Keith in 2^nd place ahead of Jason and Nick Holden in 4^th place! Nick had Fabio and Ken James  for close company.  Damian was 7^th ahead of Nick Rocke who had slow starting Roger Dowden as a buffer from the rest of the ducking and diving pack. Unfortunately,  Graham Welch was bringing up the rear at a fairly modest pace after the engine in his Rover 200 had gone on to 3 cylinders! Martins’ jolly jaunt in the lead barely lasted more than a lap before Keith hit the front and held it all the way to the flag! Martin chased Keith hard, keeping in his slipstream for the first few laps, each driver pushing hard and setting their fastest laps on lap 5, just before they started to lap the lower order. From then on Keith was able build himself a cushion, and the order seemed set with Keith leading, Martin, second, with a few seconds on son Jason 3^rd and Nick Holden a further few seconds back .  However Nick and the Atom were a few seconds ahead of Fabio who had Ken James for close company for almost the entire race. With the first few places seemingly settled, the action in the midfield was holding the interest, a fast starting Nick Rocke was as high as 7^th on lap one, but was eventually passed by Roger Dowden and Josh Wright, but still held  sway over Giles Beck et all finishing in 10^th place, as the first Class BT car.  Damian Longotano provided some interest too as he dropped down the order after finding gears hard to come by, but eventually recovered to finish in 7^th place, and within sight of Ken James who dropped back from Fabio after out-braking himself at Hatchetts.  Behind Nick & Giles, Susanne Jones was 3^rd in BT (12^th overall) ahead of Dan Burt who was having a few over-steery  moments! Daryl Radford was a few laps back but that was understandable after he was T-boned Tyrone at Hatchets. Tyrone was honest enough to admit that he had missed his braking point after glancing in his mirror. His dad wasn’t best please to see the Peugeot come back as a suspended tow! Colin Dunn also posted a DNF but this time because his exhaust had dropped off due to a fracture at the cylinder block end!  However just as it seemed that the race was running it’s course with all the places settled Jason Davies popped up into 2^nd place! Was Martin offering him a chance for a late run at Keith? Actually there Martin was suffering from a clutch and gear selection problem but then the closed back up to Jason and retook 2^nd place on the last lap and Jasons’ car started to suffer too!  After the race Martin & Jason reviewed their problems Martin revealed that Ford Sierra models still use cables to operate the clutch and he hoped that it was a cable fault. Jason had felt his front wheel bearing start to collapse after the cornering changed and the brake pedal went soft.  An upgrade from treaded tyres to slicks with a bigger tyre size seemed the likely cause!All this gave a happy Keith a free run to win by 8 seconds!

Full results from Saturday on http://www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=BARC/2015/152121wss.pdf

There are big entries in the weekends races at Pembrey with a good size grid for the non-championship race on Saturday which is serving as a warm up to Sundays Championship rounds. Having kicked off earlier with Round 1 +  Round 2  at Castle Combe at Easter, these are the first races in the 2015 season at Pembrey. However the current points leader Craig Wright, who played his joker to lead with 33 points, may miss the Sundays races as he has sold his Peugeot 308 & plans to buy a BMW Compact which may not be ready in time for this weekend, but he is trying to find a last minute deal to enter! If he does miss the races, then we are likely to have a new points leader after the Sunday Races with Martin Davies, Keith White and Sam Summerhayes tied on 22 points with Chris Morris one point behind on 21 points!

However the action starts on Saturday afternoon with the Anniversary Challenge Cup (follow the link for the latest entry) which celebrates not only 25 years of the WSSCC but also 25 years since BARC acquired the lease to Pembrey.

Sunday sees Rounds 3 & 4 of the 2015 Welsh Sports & Saloon Championship (follow the link for the latest entry)