BRSCC PLAYS AT HOME AS BRANDS HATCH THRILLS VAUX VALVES SPECTATORS
Brands Hatch’s speedbowl “Indy” layout was the setting for one of the two most recent BRSCC race meetings, with endurance racing dominating the timetable in no less than three different series. Sprint racing also included Formula Fords, sports prototypes, tintops and local content all filling out the timetable, in what was another enjoyable two days of motorsport in Kent.
AVON TYRES NATIONAL FORMULA FORD CHAMPIONSHIP
Jordan Dempsey knew he had to make the most of rediscovering his form at the previous rounds at Snetterton as he headed to Formula Ford’s spiritual home of Brands Hatch for the latest rounds of the National championship. With Lucas Romanek still climbing back towards the top and Colin Queen needing to rebound strong after a weekend to forget in Norfolk, the battle lines were drawn going into Race 1.
After claiming pole by half a second in qualifying, Dempsey was quick to press his advantage in Race 1, leaping into the lead with Queen following close behind. Colin kept up the pressure as much as possible in the opening laps, but a mistake at Graham Hill Bend lost him enough time to put Dempsey out of reach for the rest of the encounter. As it was, Jordan reeled off the laps ahead of him and eventually took the chequered flag almost four seconds clear of his American rival. As for 3rd, Shawn Rashid continued to show marked improvement as he came out on top of a frantic multi-car battle for the final podium spot, beating the rest of the group to the flag and ahead of Brandon McCaughan, Andre Lafond, Rory Smith, Morgan Quinn and Jamie Sharp.
The second of Saturday’s races played out pretty much identically to Race 1 earlier in the day – another strong start from Dempsey, more early pressure from Queen before making another mistake at Graham Hill Bend and domination of the rest of the 15 minutes from Jordan all the way to the chequered flag. This time, his winning margin was smaller at two seconds from Queen, and yet again there was a large scrap for 3rd behind them between the next four cars, with Rory Smith heading Sharp, McCaughan and Rashid in the end.
Sunday’s partially reversed grid race drew Rashid on pole and despite getting hit from behind earlier on, he could create a gap as those behind were busy battling with each other over 2nd backwards. Dempsey worked his way from 6th up to 2nd place, benefitting from contact between Queen and McCaughan and then passing Dempsey in the closing stages. However, racing wouldn’t see the full 15 minutes as an accident approaching Paddock Hill Bend between Lafond and Morgan Quinn left both cars tumbling into the gravel and out of the race. Immediately the race was stopped and results declared, allowing Rashid to claim his first National Formula Ford win ahead of Dempsey and Smith.
With weekend-long issues hampering Romanek over both days, he now only just remains in contention heading to the finale at Donington Park next month, where it looks set to be a faceoff between Dempsey and Queen for the National Pro Class title. Queen, Romanek and McCaughan also remain the top three teen drivers to be 19 or under at the end of the calendar year that would be eligible to go forwards for the end-of-season GB4 Championship prize shootout, but things could still change come Donington.
SILVERLAKE C1 ENDURANCE SERIES
After capturing their first win of the season at the previous 3 hour encounter at Donington Park, Team Trojon looked to be in excellent form as the Silverlake C1 Endurance Series moved to Brands Hatch for its next instalment of the 2022 campaign. Picking up where they left off, qualifying saw the team put the #508 car on pole position, lining up alongside established front runners WRC Developments on the front row, as another three hours awaited the 42 car field.
Both Trojon and WRC had the race in their command in the opening stages, exchanging the lead between themselves frequently, leaving the lead Patrick Watts Racing car and C1 Super Touring to experience their own private battle for third behind them. This continued until Trojan fell back gradually and elected to pit at one thirds distance while WRC carried on and wouldn’t stop for another 30 minutes, eventually making their first stop just past the 90 minute mark. Before then, the race was neutralised due to a rollover at Paddock Hill Bend by MOARwin Motorsport which took 20 minutes to resolve before racing resumed.
WRC’s stop allowed first JWB to take their turn in front, before being caught and passed by Trojon who reclaimed P1 shortly after. Both Trojon and WRC made their second stops past the two hour mark and by the time the race moved into its final 30 minutes, the final order was starting to take shape. Once the last scheduled stops were made, the top two remained in order to the flag with Trojon securing their second win in as many races, followed home by WRC in 2nd place over 40 seconds back. 3rd place went to Quattro Formaggio, who drove a steady race from 5th on the grid and recovered from an early puncture to take a place on the podium. JWB and Patrick Watts Racing also kept consistent to round off the top five.
BRSCC CLUBSPORT TROPHY
Back at the circuit that the series began back in 2019, the BRSCC ClubSport Trophy once again provided another packed grid full of its usual variety of clubman race cars, plus a couple of impressive Inviation class entries such as David May and Mark Skeats in their new Ginetta and a SEAT Leon TCR. At near-capacity sporting just over 30 cars, it was always going to be a busy affair on track.
The May/Skeats Ginetta took overall pole ahead of the best placed Clubsport class car of David Shead & Malcolm Edeson’s BMW Compact, ahead of Warren Tattersall’s SEAT TCR, Trevor Lewis and Harry Mailer’s Porsche Boxster and Paul Boulton’s Nissan 370Z. Immediately, the pole sitting Ginetta jumped into the lead and wouldn’t be seen again, as both it and the Tattersall SEAT TCR ended up driving off into the distance to finish 1st and 2nd on the road. For the officially classified ClubSport win, Shead/Edeson ran ahead of the Matthew Bolton BMW M3 and the VW Golf of James Alford, and this would be the order they ran in for most of the first part of the race. Alford became the first to make his mandatory 2 minute stop before Shead/Edeson did the same, and once the order shook itself out after the pit window closed, Alford had leapfrogged the Porsche and was now looking to hunt down the BMW ahead.
A late safety car helped to close the pair together, separated at the time by Tattersall’s SEAT TCR, and once he’d cleared the BMW it was a straight fight between Alford and Shead/Edeson. Incredibly, the finish of the race played out exactly the same as the first ClubSport race had done three years earlier, as Alford managed to steal victory on the very last corner of the race. With the invitation class cars finishing ahead of them, Alford took the official ClubSport race win in Class A ahead of Shead/Edeson and Matthew Bolton’s BMWs, while Phiroze Bilimoria claimed Class B honours in his VW Scirocco. Stewart Donovan’s solo effort in his Toyota Celica was rewarded with Class C victory, the Lundys topped Class D in their Toyota Celica too and Nick Glover gave his Mk2.5 Mazda MX-5 a win in Class E.
BRSCC SUPERSPORT ENDURANCE CUP
The first BRSCC SuperSport Endurance Cup race of the year at Brands Hatch a couple of months earlier had been a superb experience all round for those competing at the time, and now the second race happening a couple of months later once again sported an impressively varied entry, with the grid headed up in qualifying by a pair of Ginettas in the Invitation class.
One of them ended up dropping to the back of the pack when the May/Skeats G55 slipped back on the opening lap, leaving the G50 of Andre and Jake Severs to end up in front on their own, as they would drive on over the course of the 100-minute enduro and never be headed from lights to flag. Being Invitation class, they could only take the win on the road, leaving the cars behind to battle for the official overall win. That mantle was quickly taken up by the SEAT Leon Supercopa of Jamie Hayes and Alex Read with Paul Boulton’s Nissan 370Z and the John Mawdsley/ Stuart Mead VW Scirocco giving chase.
Both the SEAT and the Nissan had their turns in front through the pit stops, while behind them the VW Golf of James Alford and Mark Lloyd-Jones was making quiet and steady progress up the field, as some of the cars ahead of them started to encounter problems. A late safety car bunched everyone up again and after the restart, the Severs/Severs Ginetta drove off again and ran away with the victory on the road in the end as he completed 100 laps and took the flag first one the road. Behind him, clever strategy and persistence helped Alford/ Lloyd-Jones to rise to the top of the SuperSport class cars to claim the official win that day. They also took the Clubman-A class win, ahead of Pro-A class winner Paul Boulton in the Nissan 370Z, while Keith Issatt and Christopher Williams claimed 5th overall and the Pro-B class win. Class victories also went the way of David Drinkwater and Adam Read’s BMW Compact (Clubman-C, 8th overall) and Roan, Ethan and Paul Lundy in their Mk3 Mazda MX-5 (Clubman B, 10th overall).
TRACK ATTACK RACE CLUB
The wonderfully varied field of cars in the Track Attack Race Club touched down for their second visit to Brands Hatch in the 2022 season, with plenty of Japanese, German and French cars lining up for another pair of competitive races. The first race quickly went safety car after a first lap incident, preserving David Shead’s superb start to beat pole man Matt Hollier away from the front row. From here, Shead was never headed and left both Hollier and Gwinnett in their pair of Renault Clios to battle amongst each other for P2. While Shead picked up the win, Hollier came out on top of the all-French duel to claim 2nd place. The second race produced more of the same for Shead, again drawing away from Hollier to complete a perfect brace in his BMW, while 2nd for Hollier was taken this time ahead of the Peugeot of Adam Croft which claimed 3rd overall this time.
CMMC TINTOPS & INTERMARQUES
The local races of the Classic & Modern Motorsport Club Southern’s TinTops and Intermarques also made an appearance on the timetable at Brands Hatch with the TinTops taking to the track first with a special 30 minute pit stop race on the Saturday. The Peugeot 306 of Bassett/ Burgess took pole in qualifying, but their charge ended after just 11 minutes when they became the first retirement. Once out, their main pursuer Matt Rowling took up the mantle of race leader and did so for the majority of the remaining time left. A brief safety car late in the race helped to regroup everyone together, but even then there was no change in the leader as Rowling completed 30 laps to claim victory. Jeremy Evans made it a Honda Civic 1-2 on the podium with 2nd place, while Ken Angell and Rod Birley put in a solid shift to take 3rd in their BMW E36 328i.
On Sunday, the Intermarques took their turn on track with a healthy entry of 20+ cars on the grid on this occasion and plenty of entertainment provided from these fantastic silhouette race cars. Malcolm Blackman got the better of Race 1 pole sitter Daniel Smith from the start and claimed the lead straight away, and the pair ended up in a race of their own out in front. The gap never seemed to stretch beyond a second between the two drivers and Smith closed in during the final laps to ensure Blackman only won by less than two tenths at the flag. Ian Hales completed the top three with 3rd.
Race 2 was a somewhat different affair for both of the top two from the previous encounter as Blackman’s Vauxhall Tigra retired on the opening lap while Smith’s SLK also perished on Lap 6, leaving Mark Sear’s Ginetta to lead after the initial safety car for the majority of the race until he was shuffled down to P5 by the end. In turn, it was Steve Burrows who climbed into the lead and the race win, heading Mike Thurley and Paul Knight at the chequered flag.
ZEO PROTOTYPE CUP
Despite only producing a six car entry for their pair of races at Brands Hatch, there was still some great variety amongst the slightly sparse ZEO Prototype Cup entry on this occasion. Graham Charman’s Juno took command of the field from the outset in qualifying and carried on that form into Race 1, leaping into the lead from the outset and remained in P1 from start to finish, including through a mid-race safety car. Charman took the win from Richard Chamberlain’s CTR01 and Jay Shepherd’s NP-01 on this occasion. It could have been two from two for the Juno had it not expired after 15 laps in the second race, allowing Matthew Chamberlain to win on his turn in the CTR01, leading Lee Collar’s ADR and the sole Radical of Dominic Langdon-Down over the line at the flag.
Scott Woodwiss
