Monoposto Championship, Snetterton, 2000, Classic, 1800. 18 October 2008

With the first all dry Saturday meeting since, I think, Silverstone in April, it was unusual to see rainmesiter Tristan Cliffe back in fourth behind Jeremy Timms with the expected dominant dry pole, from 2008's biggest surprise Nick Anstruther, and Richard Purcell.Tristan explained to us: "I went out and had understeer in the fast corners. I came in to get the front wing adjusted by my Dad, but with his failing eyesight he gave me about 3 times the adjustment I wanted and I ended up with horrid oversteer. Combine that with ageing tyres and I could do no better than 4th. I wasn't driving particularly well either."

Jeremy converted his pole to a staggering lead by the end of the first lap. His 2+ second lead in qualifying was repeated on each lap and he ended the 10 lap race an unsurprising 20 seconds ahead of number 2 man Nick Anstruther. Jeremy never put a foot wrong as far as I could see and his driving matches the former CF3 championship winning chassis well – hard, full, late use of the brakes, early on the throttle and carrying speed at all times. It's a pleasure to watch. As indeed it is to watch Nick in the older generation Bowman. Like Jeremy, he's tremendously consistent, but his style is super-smooth, so that it doesn't actually look from the outside as if he's going fast. Until you look at the times.

Tristan was behind Richard Purcell for 6 laps, constantly pressuring him but unable to find a way past until lap 7, in a repeat of the Kubica/Raikonnen duel from the recent Japanese Grand Prix. I sometimes wondered if they had a rope between the cars, they were so close.

Frequent 2 litre scribe Andy Woolley was a strong 5th until on lap 9 he lost the lovely ex-Steve Wilkinson Reynard 903 at Riches in the biggest possible way.(See addendum below). He went backwards at high speed into the barriers, completely destroying the rear of the car and virtually folding the wing in on itself. It's a tribute to the integrity of this carbon car that Andy appeared to be unscathed as the car returned to the paddock. Whether anything is salvagable from this once pristine car remains to be seen. Steve Wilkinson tells me that the tricky bit could be the gearbox, as it's a Reynard-specific part and they made twice as many tubs as gearboxes. Anyway, great to see that Andy looked OK after the incident, though I bet he was stiff on Sunday, and good luck, Andy, with the car.

Whilst Barry Smith (FX02) and Graham Read (F395) never challenged for the lead, they were by no means left behind. Possibly the star of the group was Paul Calladine in his FVL. He ran into somebody on the green flag lap and bent a front wing, so went into the pits to check and started from the pit lane. He dropped from 7th on the grid to the pit lane start, to 14th at the end of lap one, and not one to give up he bravely but cleanly fought through the field to gain 6 places by lap 4 and finish ahead of Graham and behind Barry, in sixth.

Lenny Coleman, Nick Catanzaro and Graham Probyn all had interesting races (to the spectator) though in part with the 1800's. Indeed, this was to prove Nick and Rupert Reader's undoing as they diced together. The last I saw of Rupert Reader, Nick Catanzaro and Douglas McLay they were in close formation through the Russell chicane. By the time they reached Sears, it had all gone wrong. As I understand the incident, they were being lapped by Tristan, and there was a coming together. Let Tristan take up the story: "Starting that last lap I thought Rupert had seen me and stayed wide into Riches, having just been lapped by Nick Anstruther. Then Nick Catanzaro ran wide, and Rupert moved to the right to pass him on the inside. Sadly, I was already there, and despite managing to get my car moved over onto the inside kerb (not easy when it wants to follow the normal line), it wasn't enough. At the end of the kerb there is a large hump, and it spat me out. Rupert's right-rear went over my left-front and flipped him, knocking him also into Nick." Richard was launched over Nick and flipped mid-air. The landing was catastrophic, bending both front wishbones and smashing the rear of the pretty little FVJ to pieces. Just as Andy's incident was a tribute to the Reynard, Richard must surely have been very happy with the safety protection from the strong FVJ tub. As this brought out the red flags on lap 11, the two were removed from the results and the lap charts. It makes reporting more difficult, and has an Orwellian ring to it, though I suppose it makes an MSA official happy.

Rupert had earlier passed Jim Timms to lead the1800 group and was joined by Douglas McLay. Doug avoided the incident and accordingly won the 1800 class, followed by Jim and Bill Janson. Jock Sergisson's return to Mono seems to progress with each meeting as he had a good race with Patrick Huston, who, despite a visit to an ATS depot to get his wheels balanced, suffered a nasty vibration between 100 and 120 mph – not nice!

It was good to welcome Alexander Messenger. Continuing a tradition, we welcome him by showing his spin below.

Tony Cotton

ADDENDUM - Andy's incident in his own words - or "Leaving the Race by the Art of High Speed Reversing"

Just to add a few words to Tony's excellent report, I'd firstly like to thank the Mono competitors who rallied round after Saturday's race to help get the pile of bits that used to be a Reynard 903 back into its trailer.

I was having an increasingly lonely race lapping in the mid 1.15s as Tristan and Richard pulled away in their frantic battle and Barry Smith dropped away from me. I'd started to ease off a little but was jolted awake as I braked for Riches at the start of lap 9. As I hit the brakes at 126 mph the engine noise didn't change and the front wheels locked with the car ploughing straight on to the edge of the track. I instinctively reduced the brake pressure and got the wheels turning again. I knew I was going way too fast for the corner and that the engine was still accelerating the car and I think by this time (about 2/10th of a second after starting to brake) I realised with horror that the throttle was stuck fully open. No time to flick off the ignition as I turned into the corner off line and way too fast. Before I knew it I was on the grass and going backwards very fast towards the tyre barrier. I just had time to realise this was going to be the worst crash of my life and that I was probably going to be hurt when it went in hard. Suddenly everything was calm and I was surprised to be conscious and, apparently intact. I got out of the car and climbed over the tyre wall to be greeted by a marshal who seemed surprised to see me walking and talking. The only pain I noticed at the time was in my lower back on the right hand side.

Wrapped up in my own thoughts I didn't even see Rupert's crash a couple of laps later until his car was just about stationery upside down and then the red flags came out.

We haven't determined why the throttle stuck open yet but it was still wide open when we checked the car over. It went into the barriers backwards at an angle that demolished the right hand rear corner and also broke the front wishbones and track rod on that side. The left rear corner seems OK though. There is nothing salvageable from the rear wing, which will prove expensive to replace. The carbon tub is damaged where the engine frame has pulled out a mounting bobbin on one side and pushed the bobbin into the fuel cell on the other side. The gearbox appears to be OK except for the rear cover, which is broken where the wing attached. The alloy suspension mounts on the right side are sheared off but these bolt onto the gearbox casing so that should be fixable. Engine cover, diffuser and right hand side pod are shattered but at least we have spares for those parts. First task is to try and get it out of the trailer and then strip the monocoque to check it thoroughly and assess its reparability

I was a bit stiff on Sunday and even more so on Monday and the pain in my lower back was quite bad when getting out of a chair. I also gradually noticed lots of other pains and bruises. However, I've had much worse bruising in much more minor accidents. I think I was lucky that the car went in backwards as that just pushed me back against the moulded seat, giving me a nice impression below each shoulder from the belt mounting brackets. Also my head just got pushed back against the headrest. I didn't feel up to cycling to work on Monday and Tuesday so used the train instead. However, today (Wednesday) I used the bike and the bruises are getting better. I should add at this point that my cycle commute is 19 miles each way so I need to be feeling pretty OK to contemplate it!

So anyone out there got a 903 rear wing going cheap?

Andy Woolley