Anglesey Report
It was nice and sunny, for us, when the clouds parted. It wasn’t the heatwave conditions we had at Silverstone & Donington, but at least it was dry, as most of Wales had been hit by heavy showers in the run-up to the race day!
Entry and Qualifying
The races on the Anglesey Coastal course https://www.angleseycircuit.com/venue/circuit-configurations/coastal/
are the first time for the Welsh Sports & Saloon Championship to race on this layout, so Fastest Laps for the classes present would be set. We had a good grid of Championship points scorers, plus a few guests, most notably Christian Douglas, who was driving an Ariel Atom. (a car we have had in the WSSCC a few years ago)
Christian joined us to link up with Ben Scriven, who also looks after Chris & Dave’s cars, among many others. We have a pair of drivers who are having their first race of the season, Neil Thomas & Aled Dark, both driving an MGB GT, but it has various states of tune. Thomas & Dark are from the Mid Wales/Aberystwyth area, as is Deri Davies, who drives a Darrian T90. John Morris from Hereford made It 4 guest drivers in the 17-car grid!
Pole went to Christian Douglas (non -points scoring guest) In the Lucky 7 Racing Ariel Atom! with Chris Everill alongside CE Commercials Ginetta G55 (Chris was the first of the points scorers)
On the 2nd row, Dave Krayrem was 3rd fastest in his Ginetta G55 but a sensational 4th fastest was Wayne Spiller, who took the Class BS pole in his Edwards & Ross Pallets sponsored Mazda RX8! Wayne was on his 3rd engine of the year and he said he bought this one from the internet!
On row 3 were Deri Davies and Gareth John.
On row 4 was Todd Garner, the former BS points leader, and (non-points scoring guest) John Morris (Tigra)
On Row 5 was (Aled Dark (non-points scoring guest) MGB GT V8 & Colin Dunn on the Class BT pole.
Row 6 was an all-BT row with Rodney Teague and Andrew Williams.
On Row 7 were Mike Cook CT BMW and Tyrone Dowsell (Class BT Clio )
On Row 8 was Neil Thomas’ MGB GT (non-points scoring guest) and Verity Banks
Race 1 – Round 11 -15 minutes
After the pace car lap the car showing first was Christian Douglas (Ariel Atom) in close dice with Chris Everill, Dave Karyem was an untroubled 3rd, with a fast starting Wayne Spiller in 4th place. But then Deri Davies got his Darrian going and passed Wayne to run in 4th but was then in a close dice with Wayne for many laps! Deri drew away late on but by now Wayne was well in charge of BT, but Gareth John, recovering from a spin at the hairpin (it was on his own and perhaps he was trying too hard) put in a late spurt to close on Wayne at the end. Wayne finished 5th and Gareth has 6th and the last driver on the lead lap! (Wayne’s efforts netted him the ‘Driver of the Race' award, and with him choosing to use his Joker in this race it was all good.)
Todd Garner had a good dice with John Morris, until Morris pulled off with a cloud of steam coming from the engine! Aled Dark had a good, if untroubled race to 8th place. In Class BT Rodney Teague was the initial leader from Colin Dunn! But Colin applied the pressure and passed Rodney for the Class lead. Rodney stayed in touch, to keep Colin in sight. Andrew Williams had a close dice with Tyrone Dowsell which was elevated to a fight for 11th & 12th after Mike Cook had a quick spin, which dropped him behind Neil Thomas MGB! Andrew meanwhile was doing anything to shake off Tyrone who included kicking a cloud of dust on the exit of turn one, which had only partly cleared when Christian Douglas hove into view! Christian lapped Tyrone but before he could catch Andrew, the chequered flag flew, which ended the race! Neil Thomas’ MGB GT was 13th, Mike Cook was 14th and Verity Banks was 15th. In the meantime, Christian Douglas had straight forward lights to flag victory, but it was Chris Everill, who was the first points scorer!
Roger Dowden made the trip up, and we were able to ask the pace-car driver to bunch the grid up at the start of race 2 as Race 1 was a bit too quick and spaced the grid out too much!
Race 2 – Round 12 -15 minutes
This time the grid was good as the lights change to start the race! Chris Everill took the lead from Christian, who later retook it and then ran to the chequered flag! Chris was the first Class D point scorer and had used his Joker card to double his points. Deri Daves got a good start and was in 3rd place early on, until Dave Krayem overtook him! But Deri wasn’t willing to accept this and in a ‘David and Goliath act using his kept harrying Dave and his 7 litre Ginetta, with his more nimble 2 litre Darrian until he retook 3rd place late on. Dave then chased hard but Deri was able to break away after lapping some backmarkers, and crossed the line some 2.5 seconds apart. Deri was awarded the ‘Driver of the Race’ award for his efforts! Behind the big ‘D’ fight in the BS Class, Todd Garner got the best start, while Wayne Spiller got a bad one and found himself bottled up behind Gareth John. Wayne could sense Todd getting away, and so he was maybe somewhat forceful whilst getting past Gareth! (Post-race Wayne was called up to discuss the incident with the Clerk of the Course) Wayne in the meantime reeled in Todd Garner and got past him to take an Anglesey BS double win, with the extra point for the Class BS fastest lap! Todd finished 6th and was the last car on the lead lap! Gareth John was 7th. Aled Dark rumbled once again and had a straightforward run to 8th place In 9th place Colin Dunn was in charge of Class BT, but Rodney Teague ran him close, getting alongside in the early laps! Andrew Williams and Tyrone Dowsell had another close dice, with only a second between them. Tyrone was the last runner on 12 laps. In 13th place was Neil Thomas sideways MGB which held Mike Cooks BMW at bay. Verity Banks was also on 11 laps.
So our Anglesey sojourn came to an end. Bright and breezy and within the sight of Mount Snowdon!
750 filmed us (at no cost) and the link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HF_LdAuv5w
It starts with our 1st Race and Thanks to Eric Dunn who says our 2nd race is at 3hrs 19 minutes
Results are available here
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NP7u_rh5Wvlqt-2n7itPdfbuP2AWYNc0