Monoposto Championship, Oulton Park, 2000 and Classic, 9 August 2008

An entry of 20 graced the beautiful Cheshire parkland circuit. A wet day, and not one of Mono's happiest. With no lap charts, this is a brief report.

If the 2 litre Monopostos didn’t have the torrential rain which greeted the 12/16/18s they had bad enough conditions - damp and greasy. Standing between Old Hall and Cascades for qualifying, it’s always easy to guess the really quick drivers – they look very fast round Cascades. So it came as no surprise to your reporting team that Jeremy Timms was on pole (2.03.99), closely followed on 2.04.29 by Tristan Cliffe who is always impressive when it’s wet. Completing the top 3, who were quite markedly different to the rest, was, unsurprisingly, Neil Harrison on 2.05.8. Smugly, we guessed the top 3 just from watching.

Richard Purcell was 3 seconds behind Neil, and was closely followed by Nick Anstruther. There was then a 3 second gap back to Jeremy Goodman, back in the Dallara despite the programme attributing the RT3. Jeremy is currently engaged in a performance art project in which he intends to confuse all commentators, reporters, series co-ordinators and spectators by always entering one car and racing in another. He will regret it when the wrath of a confused Mary Cox descends upon him….

With the 6.30 curfew approaching, the CSCC Future Classics race seemed never to end, interesting though it was. At around 5.30 the long awaited 2 litre race began; it seemed to come as a surprise to the commentators, but Oulton is always a bit idiosyncratic in that regard. As the track was dry, everybody was out on slicks, as far as we could tell. At the start, Jeremy was way ahead of everybody, even on the first lap, while Neil got the better of Tristan and proceeded to build a reasonable buffer. Tristan, meanwhile, was closely pursued by Richard Purcell, and when I say closely, it was rarely much more than a car length or two, usually less. Nick Anstruther was not part of the battle, but was close behind.

At around the halfway mark, it started to rain, albeit lightly. Not enough to worry spectators , but enough to make the track less than perfect. Whether this had any effect on the next major event is hard to say. Neil Harrison thinks there may have been an oil spillage, and certainly that combined with a spitting of rain would explain a lot. However, as the incident was at Druids, it’s unlikely that the rain would have had much time to affect the track.

Neil has kindly explained what happened: “I spun on the entry to Druids . I think someone had put oil down as there was no warning, and for the next four cars through in a row all to spin is a little odd!. I ended up in the gravel side on. The next three cars through, Tristan, Richard Purcell, and Nick Anstruther all did the same. Tristan missed me, Nick carried on, but unfortunately for Richard and me he went straight into the side of my car. I think both of us were winded at the time - I certainly was - and a little shaken, so the Doctor came to see us. We are both fine, although I think I have damaged some ribs as my belts were undone at the time of impact.”

Clearly a scary incident which resulted in an instant red flag, and the paddock was a quiet place as the reporters left for home. We send our best wishes to all involved in the incident for a speedy recovery and hope that car repairs are not too problematic. Despite the wobble referred to by Neil, Nick came through to second and to win Classic.

Behind the leading 5, Jeremy Goodman, Barry Smith and Geoff Fern were having a close fight, eventually resolved in Geoff’s favour. Unfortunately, whilst he ended the race in third, a first podium with the Dallara, the Toyota engine looked a bit smoky; hopefully not a repeat of the 1600 engine problems. The next battle up was Richard Snuggs and Russ Giles in their immaculate F3 chassis. Richard led for much of the race, but eventually Russ came out ahead.

It's interesting that when I emailed Neil for information on the accident, he added in his reply “I would like to apologise for bringing an early end to what was looking like a good race!” Is Mono the most polite championship on the planet?

Tony Cotton, with input from Neil Harrison

Pics by author, Andrew Cliffe and screen grabbed from Tristan Cliffe's YouTube video.

As the field heads for cascades on lap 1, the parkland looks at it's glorious green best. (enough - this isn't Gardener's World -ed)

Tristan Cliff and Richard Purcell were close - seen here in the Knickerbrook Chicane

Geoff Fern follows Barry Smith

Graham Probyn's Reynard 863 is a very good looking car

Richard Snuggs leads Russ GilesHoward Seward, Lenny Coleman and Richard Taylor