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Cars Magazine Mono Championship Practice Once again qualifying was very busy, but everyone seemed cooler about it, perhaps it was the lack of noise testing!. Chris Woodhouse again dominated and was even quicker than on Saturday, but Chris Vinall and Dax Ward also improved and closed in. Peter Bragg settled to his rightful place and took the Mono1800 pole. The M1800 mid-field group was very close with some seven cars separated by less than a second. Once again Tony Cotton lead the Mono1600s from Dave Parkinson. Jim Timms qualified third fastest Mono1800 after changing the gearing overnight. Jim, “the car seems better geared, its just on the limiter at the end of the Revett Straight”. Yunus Amiere had a functioning car, he “Loved this one – car felt really good”. Tony Davies was also pleased with his grid position after a fraught rebuild which took most of Saturday. James Chapman and Sara Hughes were also pleased with the improvements to their respective cars. Sara wanted more pace through Coram, don’t we all! Jonathan Baggott executed a neat spin at Russell. In the Mono1400s Stephen Brooks made the unlikely claim that he, “Waited for Peter Whitmore on track”. Geoff Fern, referring to his hired Jedi, stated that “I’m getting used to it now”. We make that the fifth class Geoff has now competed in, which must be some sort of record. Race As the penultimate race of the day, the Mono1000/1400/1600/1800 race followed the ‘lets see how many times we can spin a MR2 at Russell race’, this also meant that the second Monoposto race took place as the temperatures began to drop. Mono1000/1400 Once again Chris Woodhouse stormed into an unchallenged lead, he was chased by a determined Chris Vinall. For the first three laps the two red Speads were a splendid sight at the head of the field, they retained their position from start to finish, but with lapping tailenders starting as early as lap four the spectators had to concentrate if they were to understand the race order. Chris Woodhouse lead the race from start to finish, although he was never challenged by Chris Vinall, the latter kept in touch and finished a scant 3.8s behind. Given the traffic this was just about the time that being delayed by lapped cars could loose, but the advantages and disadvantages of the traffic seemed to be even handed and for much of the race the gap between first and second was relatively constant. Initially, the Jedi of Dax Ward had stayed with the pair of Speads, but then had slowly lost ground at the rate of about a second a lap. Dax had a relatively lonely run, if one can call constantly dealing with lapped traffic, lonely. Stephen Brooks was even more isolated in his steady run to fourth place overall, and first in the 1400 class, he finished comfortably ahead of Darren Freeman's Mono1000 Jedi. Missing from the leading group was Geoff Fern in his ‘rent a drive’ Jedi, Geoff had transmission failure and was pushed off the grid. A great pity, because as his fourth placed grid position demonstrated Geoff was getting to grips with a motorcycle engined car’s idiosyncrasies. Next up was second Mono1400, the Van Diemen of Peter Whitmore. Peter won his traditional battle with Peter Bragg's 1800 by a second. For much of the race this contest had been a three way affair with Len Turner, Jedi, in the mix, eventually Len bought his Jedi home four seconds behind Peter’s 1400 Van Diemen. Peter Collier’s OMS was the next motorcycle engined finisher, (surely a natural for the 1400 class) home behind the main1800 scrap. The remaining runner, Brian Jones, became a non runner on lap 7 with a deflated tyre after a minor incident. Mono1800s Peter Bragg had taken his Mygale round the track a second faster in the Mono2000 race, but a lap time of 1:17.2 was still enough to leave the other 1800s in his wake, as he entertained himself, and the spectators by racing with the motorcycle engined cars. He won the 1800s from an intense scrap between Doug McLay, JimTimms, Jock Sergison and Michael Dale. Doug's Mygale lead the group from JimTimm’s Van Diemen Formula Ireland. Doug's car, impressively stable, as it repeatedly entered Russell with smoking tyres, was faster in a straight line than Jim's winged Formula Ireland, but Jim seemed to have the advantage under brakes and they always rounded Russell as a pair. As one would expect, Jim never gave up the pursuit and finished less than a second behind to take third in class. Jock Sergison ran third in this group for much of the race but a spin at two thirds distance dropped him to sixth in class behind Bill Janson. This left Fourth in class to the final member of the 1800 midfield scrap, Michael Dale. Returnee Michael was steadily regaining his old speed after a year out. On the basis of his lap times, I would have expected Rupert Reader to have been part of the midfield group so suspect that he must have suffered a significant delay out of my sight. The 1800 field was completed by the Vauxhall Junior of Yunus Amiere, who had sorted most of the 'newly assembled car bugs’ out of his car, but his loss of track time over the extended weekend had been significant and must have affected his speed. Pleased to have a reliable car underneath him, he entertained spectators with a spin at the exit of Russell. Mono1600 Unfortunately, Sara Hughes was a non starter her engine has decided that
it doesn’t need an oil pump when the car was in the assembly area. Fastest Laps: Chris Woodhouse, Stephen Brooks, Peter
Bragg, David Parkinson. Patrick Huston |
Dax Ward, Jedi. Peter Whitmore ahead of Len Turner
Great to see DP's Reynard back in one piece with some Avitised bits. Tony Davies behind.
Henry Fryer gets his FVJ crossed up.
Stephen Williams's Mygale
James Chapman's Jamun M97
Tony Davies leads Tony Cotton |
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