Track and Race Cars Magazine Monoposto Championship Croft 26 September 2009 1000,1400 and 1800

Normally, Monoposto is a well behaved formula, at least in practice. Most of the cars that turn up run in the race. There must be something in the water at Croft because we had an unusually high drop out rate.

Arguably, the first was 1800 stalwart Pete Bragg, who not only was not entered, he's hired out his lovely new Formula Novis 2litre to Ewan Sergison. Next, the practice for the Mono all comers non-championship race took out Brian Jones (clutch) and Bill Janson (steering ball joint).

Practice for the 1000/1400/1800 race was red flagged when Peter Whitmore and Rupert Reader came together. Rupert got running but Peter was unable to get a pick up adaptor for his VD upright – the Ireland ones are similar but a different geometry. The result of qualifying was no great surprise with Chris Woodhouse up front by from Kat Impey, followed over 2 seconds later by Geoff Fern and Darren Freeman. Dave Rippin, who qualified with the 2 litres, was another non-starter.

1000/1400/1800 Race 1

Watching from the spectator banks, the cars appeared at the Jim Clark Esses. At least, Chris Woodhouse did, and after what seemed a long time but in reality was around 3 seconds, Geoff Fern came along closely followed by Stephen Brookes in third, up from 5th on the grid. Bringing the 1800 fight into 1000/1400 home territory were Silverstone joiner Lance Pritchard, 4th in his black Van Diemen RF 82 and Jim Timms in the 1800 VD Fireland.

As the cars streamed through there was no sign of Kat Impey, but she appeared slowly at the back. An errant Dzus fastener was causing problems and she entered the pits. She lost a lap, and rejoined at the back. From here on, it was a joy to watch Kat as she sliced cleanly through the field, a very thoughtful drive in view of the varied speeds and characteristics of the cars, winning fastest lap on the way. From 17th, dead last at the end of lap 1, and missing a lap, she was up to an overall 10th on the last lap but one after taking eventual third place man Geoff Fern in a superb and brave manoeuvre at Sunny In. Geoff set off on the final lap in pursuit, and in the complex with the flag just metres away, there was contact. Geoff lost his wing but was able to continue whilst Kat was off, to return on the flatbed. A sad end to a superb drive.

Talking of superb drives, Chris Woodhouse won at his own pace. Driving fluidly and consistently, and lapping with care, he won by 42 seconds, and that isn’t against easy opposition. It’s difficult to comment on his race because it was unchallenged and pretty near perfect.

Behind Chris, it looked at first as though we were in for a glorious fight between Stephen Brookes and Geoff Fern. The race started with Geoff a car’s length ahead of Stephen, they entered the complex almost side-by-side, and returned on lap 2 in a similar formation, if anything Geoff a shade further ahead. Stephen took the advantage on lap 4, and thereafter was never headed.

Darren Freeman and Lance Pritchard started fourth and fifth, and finished in that order, Lance beating Darren at the start and Darren resuming fourth on lap 10. Second 1800 man was another recent joiner, Matt Hayes in his Lime Green Jamun, who had some close laps with Jim Timms. Two very different cars, the small, unwinged Jamun and the large, winged FIreland were very well matched. Len Turner in 8th seemed to be somewhat above all this racing stuff and was soon lapping the 1800’s, whilst Phil Nicholson and Michael Dale had a long and good clean fight. Another well matched pair, Rupert Reader and Douglas McLay were running together for much of the race, and the last 4 finishers, Jock Sergison, Geoff Cowell, Chris Helliwell and Chris Anstruther finished in that order but at some point seemed to adopt every permutation. Chris Helliwell sounded a bit rough towards the end, but it’s uncertain whether this affected the result.

Tony Cotton