last update 27/05/2015

Round 3 of the 2015 Welsh Sports & Saloon Championship 

Pembrey Sunday 24th May

 report and photos by Rob Allender

Entry & Practice

Nick Holden - Ariel Atom - Nick was up and at em!

There was a pleasing number of Pembrey & Championship debutants among the entries for Pembreys first race meeting of the year. It was the 3^rd round of the championship as the 2015 season had already started with 2 races at Castle Combe on Easter Monday.  On this weekend, Saturday had been nice & sunny, but the forecast for Sunday included rain, but more of that later.

After a dry practice session, on Pole was the 2014 Champion Keith White and his BMW Z4 silhouette with a time of 61.037 seconds but alongside, and completing a Class D front row lock-out, was Nick Holden, whose Ariel Atom was making it’s Championship debut at Pembrey!  Martin Davies was 3^rd fastest and the leading Class CS runner and had fellow Pembrokeshire lad Ken James alongside with his Loco Hornet .  5^th fastest was Glynne Jones who had his BMW 320 really flying, and was joined by West Wales fresh air lover Damian Longotano and his Westfield in 6^th place making it 4 class CS runners in a row!

7^th fastest was Sam Summerhayes and his flying Class AT Citroen Saxo (although he did bash the Armco during the session) , & he had Mike Edgell with his classic (Class AS)Mini alongside.

The flying Nick Rocke and his Class BT leading Ford Fiesta Mk 4 was 9^th fastest and Josh Wright was having a fine Championship debut with 10^th in his Renault Megane.  

11^th was Dave Scaramanga, (Class CS).  Dave was noted in the programme  as driving a VW Sirocco but was in fact using a VW Vento as he is saving the Sirocco for other duties, and he had Roger Dowdens’ Class AS  Davrian alongside.

2013 Champion Chris Morris was 13^th with his Class AS Ignis and he was only a few 10ths behind Roger. Alongside was Peter Hills completing the Class AS runners with his Mini. There was some doubt that Peter could make it into the race after he found his oil cooler had split. However Nick Rocke generously  donated one he had spare to get Peter out!  Well done Nick!

On Row 8, were Class BT runners Giles Beck (BMW 318) and Susanne Jones (Lotus Elise). Suzie thought she was having problems as she couldn’t find any grip! However she was relieved to find after asking around that the ‘problem’ was just the normal horrible Truck meeting track conditions! 

Row 9  was also a  BT row with Dan Burt (Punto) and Colin Dunn (Clio)who was making his race debut.

Row 10 saw the final BT runners Tyrone Lufferelli  (Peugeot 106 GTi)  & Daryl Radford (Honda Civic)

Daryl was another driver making his debut at Pembrey, as were the Class AT runners Andrew K Williams MG ZR and Holly Welch (Rover 200)on the final row!

Missing out were Huw Morgan & Fabio Lufferelli who both damaged their cars on Saturday . Also ruled out were Andy Williams as he was still waiting for his engine to be repaired after his Castle Combe blow up.

Race 1 – 15 minutes + 1 Lap

Although the track was dry for the morning practice, some light drizzle began to fall, and as it neared lunch-time it had intensified such a degree that the track looked fairly wet, and then the rain stopped! So with the Welsh Championship runners due to be the first race on the wet track, the slick verse wets gamble was on! Keith White decided to gamble on the track drying later on, and started on slicks. However both Nick Holden & Martin Davies decided that wets were best,  and there were similar gambles throughout the Slick classes. In the best position were those in the Treaded tyre Classes as there only choice was to go for new tyres or stick with the same set. As the lights changed Keith had Nick & Martin all over him, and Nick was the first into Dibeni, but Martin was in no mind to hang about, and took the lead at the Paddock turn and drew away from Nick. Meanwhile Keith and all the slick tyre runners, were having to tiptoe around the wetter parts of the circuit! Having taken the lead, Martin was using all his wet weather driving skill and the advantages of the 4 wheel drive in his Ford Sierra Sapphire to put himself as far away from Nick and Keith as he could! At the start of lap 2 he was almost 3 seconds ahead of Nick and almost 6 ahead of Keith. However unknown to the leaders, there was some mayhem on the exit to Dibeni on lap 1, with too many cars trying to use the same part of the track! Unfortunately Damian found his Westfield cannoning about from one car to another and his stricken car speared off the track with a broken front wishbone (and some chassis damage). Josh Wright spun round to face the wrong way but Roger Dowden took to the grass as he tried to avoid it all, but ended up doing more pirouettes  than  Darcey Bussell in Swan Lake! ‘The grass was wet and was no grip from the slicks!’ Josh sorted himself out but with Damian and his Westfield stranded on the outside of Dibeni, the organisers decided to Red Flag the race. This meant a complete re-grid, which was a relief to Glynne Jones as he was so late getting his car ready for the first start, that he had to start from the pit-lane but he was now able to take his proper place on the grid! However as they recovered Damians car and started to reassemble the grid, Martin & Nick could see their best chances evaporate as the track began to dry in front of their eyes!

Race 1 – restart

So Rhodri Jenkins, the weekends’ pace car driver, brought the grid around for the restart, and Martin Davies again made the best of the conditions to lead from Nick & Keith. Even a drying track wasn’t going to deny Martin and he held sway in the early laps, although with Nick & Keith in very close company, with the three of them stretching away from the rest.  Martin gained some relief when they started to lap the backmarkers as he sliced his way through, playing a high speed game of ‘hide & seek’.  

In the meantime as the sun peeped through,  a dry line began to appear and Keiths’ slicks were coming in and he made his move on Nick on lap 7 and then began to reel in Martin. However Martin was in no mood to give up easily and held off some determined efforts by Keith until lap 10. Later, as Martins’ heavy metal Sapphire began to use up his wet tyres on the drying track, Nick was able to over- take on lap 13 to take 2^nd place as his lighter car had not over-stressed his wets so much. With the race in 2 parts, there was only time for 14 laps for the  three leaders, who by then had lapped everyone else!  

In 4^th place Ken James had Sam Summerhayes, Dave Scaramanga,  Roger Dowden & Mike Edgell for company early on.  Dave passed Sam after an epic dice,  to settle into 5th position and Mike passed Sam and Roger for 6^th and the Class AS win behind Ken and Dave,  with all 3 of them a only few seconds apart at the end! Sam settled into 7^th place and the Class AT win ahead of Glynne Jones in 8^th! Roger Dowden finished 9^th after a late race duel with Josh Wright & his Megane,  with less ½ second between them at the end! Peter Hills was 11^th and was 3^rd in Class AS.

Now if Mike Edgell won Class AS and Roger Dowden was 2^nd and Peter Hills was 3^rd, what happened to Chris Morris? Well thereby hangs a tale! Chris was 13^th fastest in practice, and although there was only 7/10ths of a second separating him from Mike Edgell that space was filled with 5 cars! Chris had a slow start which allowed Peter Hills to jump him, although he got that place back fairly quickly, and eventually reeled in Roger Dowden, Mike Edgell was well in the distance! Chris decided he needed to do something fairly drastic about trying to close the gap on Mike, which included trying to take Honda Curve in 5^th gear, instead of his normal dab and shift down! Chris wryly commented afterwards ‘It didn’t work!’ The result can be seen on Chris’ in-car video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmNVB1mcS-U&feature=youtu.be . Chris got sideways and onto the grass on the inside, but collected it up and missed the barrier, but the grassy moment had torn off the left side splitter and bodywork, which tucked under the car and made such a horrible noise that Chris pulled off to save what he could. So it was a rare DNF for Chris, but he was able to fix it back together with a roll of Lidls clear tape to get back out for race 2 (Chris wasn’t the only one needing a few rolls of tape to cover up some body damage!) Susanne Jones was the only other non-finisher after a grassy moment  on lap 2 ‘I ran out of talent’ was her own assessment, however this was when the track was the wettest!

 Nick Rocke, who won Class AT, had an excellent start and was as high as  10^th on the first lap but settled down into 12^th place. However Nick had Daryl Radford right on his bumper in the late laps, with just 1/10ths of a second separating them at the end. Nick had played his Joker (as did Keith White) so was able to double his points, which was excellent news for him and Keith, but bad news for Craig Wright the points leader after Combe who wasn’t racing this weekend!  Giles Beck was 14^th after an early dice with Peter Hills and Daryl Radford.  Dan Burt was 15^th. Tyrone Lufferelli  and Colin Dunn had a tight battle for 16th & 17^th with the places going one way and then the next as the race wore on. Andrew K Williams was 18^th and Holly Welch was the last finisher in 19^th place. 

So Keith White ran out the winner, his gamble on slicks having paid off, but it was far from easy ‘That was too close! It was very tricky early on. In fact, at first I could see Nick and Martin going away and I thought, this will be a good gap to close when it dries!  So the red flag came at the right time for me!  Even so it wasn’t easy!’

N.B All items on this site and in these reports are designed to convey the fun and excitement of motor sport, and should be viewed in this context only.

 Race 2

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