BRSCC SLIDES BACK INTO SNETTERTON FOR MAZDA MX-5 ONE DAY THRILLIER
Merely six days after we were in Norfolk for two days of tin-top racing, the British Racing & Sports Car Club heads back to the Snetterton 300 for a one-day spectacular full of sports car racing and a long-distance spectacular that makes its debut on Saturday too!
Dominating the timetable are the trio of championships within the BRSCC’s Mazda MX-5 paddock, with more than 80 cars in total spanning across all three formulae. The BRSCC Mazda MX-5 Championship is now already reaching the halfway points in the 2021 season with a title battle that is getting more and more intense with each race completed. We’re now at the stage where dropped scores are starting to come into play and while on overall scores it’s a tie between Jack Brewer and Oliver Graham, it looks a little different once the three worst results are removed. In that instance, Brewer has a ten-point lead over Oliver Allwood followed by Steve Foden, Brian Trott and Sebastian Fisher, with the top five separated by just over thirty points. Now going forwards, every result will be crucial as it could be the difference between a driver remaining in the championship fight or slipping down the order. Brewer and Allwood are the latest race winners from Anglesey, so they will carry the top form heading to Norfolk.
Their identical kin in the BRSCC Mazda MX-5 Clubman Championship are also enjoying a competitive inaugural season after it began this year. The man to beat so far is Harry Storer, who has driven near flawlessly to head up the table with five wins out of the first six races, all with fastest laps to boot too. Overall, he’s almost 50 points ahead of second placed man Rob Greensmith, but when the worst three scores are taken away the lead that Storer has is more than halved to just over 20 points, making it a slightly tighter contest than it first seemed. Not too far behind are Dan Blake and Kevin Bird, two drivers whose consistency have helped them both into a strong position at this stage, with both Richard Bartlett and Peter Higton not far behind. This Saturday’s entry sees a healthy grid of 21 cars ready to line up, with some new faces ready to join in against the current regulars.
The biggest grid within their paddock will be for the BRSCC Mazda MX-5 SuperCup, which heads to Snetterton with a mammoth 40 car entry ready to race once more. The championship is certainly enjoying a current boom period off the back of a healthy 2020 season despite the shortened calendar, and right now the grids are as big as they’ve ever been on a consistent basis. Once more, drivers here will drop their three worst scores, and when that comes into play it means defending champion Samuel Smith still has the Pro Class lead over Jack Harding, but his advantage gets cut from thirteen points (overall) to just seven (minus worst three), with third placed Patrick Fletcher only a further four back. The title race looks as though it’s set to be between these three at the top, although James Cossins, John Langridge, Declan Lee and Will Blackwell-Chambers will be amongst many that will try to make their life difficult by chasing them down all weekend.
The battle for the Club Class lead is also getting pretty intense too, as Richard Amos’ nightmare weekend at Anglesey saw him only score a single solitary point after a collision in the first race, leaving Clive Powles and Kevin Silvain to take full advantage as they shared the wins in Wales between them. Now Silvain leads Powles in the points standings, but Amos’ prior success earlier in the season have helped him maintain 3rd on dropped scores with Martin Heath and Bruce Robinson not too far behind. Many of the usual full-season drivers are back once again on the grid, ensuring it’s going to be another cracking weekend of Mazda racing all round.
Plus, to round off the day’s racing, a brand new series will conduct its first ever race after being conceived a few months ago. The BRSCC gets set to introduce the Supersport Endurance Cup, a new long distance “allcomers” style series that will race for 100 minutes on Saturday for the first time ahead of a planned full season of races on the 2022 calendar. The longer format means cars can be entered with up to three drivers in each line-up as well as featuring mandatory pitstops with refuelling. A comprehensive six-class structure endures a wide range of cars can be competitive across the board, bringing more chances for drivers to potentially leave with a trophy, and with a maximum power to weight ratio set at 350bhp per tonne, anything from GT4 and TCR cars to those also regularly found racing in the Clubsport Trophy sister series can feature here.
For the first ever race, all but one of the classes is represented, the overall winner set to come from one of the two “Pro” classes. The Pro-A class features David Trigg’s Lotus Exige Euro Cup R against the Honda Civic FK2 of Stuart Emmett and Dan Ludlow, plus the pumped up BMW Compact of Martin Gadsby and Ian Jones, while in Pro-B it’s Mike Nash’s SEAT Supercopa versus the BMW M3 of Ben Salmon, Nick Starkey and Matthew Maxted. Other cars in the entry include a Porsche Cayman, a Nissan 370Z, a Renault Clio Cup car and another Honda Civic Type R, as well as several Mazda MX-5s and BMW Compacts that regularly race in other BRSCC championships. This should be a entertaining first race to kick things off for this exciting brand new series!
Scott Woodwiss
