StartlineOnLine

Startline OnLine

Monoposto Championship Brands Hatch 28 March 2010: 1800, 1600, 1400 & 1000

The Entry

Peter Whitmore brought out his now Hayabusa engined Van Diemen, but had a frustrated debut with drive shaft problems, and re-joined member Gary Hill had a very pretty Hayabusa engined OMS which went well until oil problems intervened. Darren Freeman was a casualty of Friday testing when he had the Big Paddock Bend Turn-In Accident and seriously scratched his Jedi, as well as removing himself to the medical centre for a while. He was an unfortunate and significant loss, but others also suffered start of the season problems, Doug McLay being forced to withdraw his Mygale from the Mono 1800 (and 2000) races.

Qualifying

The Mono 1800/1600/1400/1000 qualifying session started scrappily when several competitors were delayed by their Drivers Briefing. Peter Whitmore was in trouble immediately when a driveshaft failed, ending his day. Not surprisingly the bike-engined cars headed the timesheets with Arty Cameron splitting poleman Dax Ward from his team mate Marc Fortune. A slightly ill-at-ease Adrian Wright came next, followed by an excellent run from new man Gary Hill. Unfortunately the oil light on the lovely OMS came on at the end of the session and Gary took it home rather than risk the motor. Stuart Digby found his engine wouldn’t run over 9000rpm (!) but fixed the problem for the race.

In the 1800s Julian Hoskins put his very smart Zetec Vector on the class pole from Peter Bragg who reported he was running with Thruxton gearing and so didn’t use top gear all day. John Whitbourn was next up. He had done well to be there at all after his gearbox had virtually disintegrated in Friday’s test when its oil failed to be in the expected place and he and his very experienced father, Ted Whitbourn, were keeping a close eye on the hastily rebuilt unit. Philip Nicholson was next up but attracted attention when he beached his Swift on the exit kerb at Paddock Hill Bend.

In the 1600s Nigel Smith was 1.5 seconds ahead of Dave Parkinson’s smoothly rebodied Reynard, followed by Tony Davies. Joe Venor, Eddie Guest and Henry Fryer all took trips into the kitty litter without much damage. Henry was a first lap victim of Paddock Hill Bend, the bent nose of his Van Diemen was repaired, but he was not available for the statutory three laps behind the pace car, and so was eliminated on the technicality of not completing three laps during qualifying. Finally commiserations to Paul Heavey when the Leastone leaked away all its oil. Paul blew his second engine in as many weeks, travelling from Ireland, he had a long trip without a race.

Race

The Mono 1800/1600/1400/1000 race came out later in the day, but to their credit MSVR were running their packed meeting ahead of schedule and to its credit the weather was still helping. Arty Cameron got the drop on the Ward/Fortune combo off the line and screamed into an early lead, the three Jedi slowly drawing away from Adrian Wright’s home built Gem. Julian Hoskins got a very quick start and went into a class lead (1800s) he wasn’t to lose. Initially he lead from Pete Bragg who got past John Whitbourn briefly. Peter then fell right to the back when he lost it under braking for Paddock Hill Bend and became a temporary resident of the gravel trap. This let Phil Nicholson into third in class. Phil was having an entertaining dice with 1600 leader Nigel Smith, Nigel eventually slipped through on the inside of Druids. Despite Whitbourn closely shadowing Julian throughout the race the yellow Vector left no gaps for John to exploit and Julian took a good class win, Michael Dales drove steadily to third in class.

In the 1600s Nigel Smith also wasn’t headed from the start. He was followed in by a smooth Dave Parkinson, challenged by Tony Davies. However Tony was eventually disqualified. This meant Nigel Davers took an excellent class podium third in his first ever race.

Back at the front Arty quickly got swamped by Dax, who dived through on the entry to Graham Hill Bend and Marc, but he resumed his second place when Marc disappeared on his fourth lap. Meanwhile, Stuart Digby had his car back on song and moved up to third ahead of Adrian Wright, whose motor lost its edge, but then recovered a little as the race went on. Dax broke away and built up about a six second lead, only to lose it in the traffic, Arty closing to within 1.5 seconds or so, but he couldn’t get on terms.

As the race wound to a close the Safety Car came out for a couple of laps as officials had a think about what to do about Samir’s errant Formula Vauxhall Junior. This car had made its way into the Paddock Hill gravel trap by an unconventional route sans driver. The commenters doubted that the race would be restarted and immediately after the restart several drivers wished that the organisers had not bothered because Phil Nicholson lost his Swift entering Paddock Hill Bend, Peter Bragg, who was lining Phil up had to lift and also spun, while Tony Davies did the same in a solo effort. With four cars in the gravel trap, there was an immediate red. All three were not running when the red flag went out and were therefore disqualified, letting Michael Dale to take the third 1800 and Nigel Davers the 1600 podium places after steady but effective driving through all the excitement.

Simon Davey and Patrick Huston.

Click here for Results & here for Championship Positions

Simon Davey’s Brands Hatch Observations.

At total of 53 Mono entries made it to the meeting, which was absolutely excellent. The entry also featured no less than 10 drivers who didn’t race with us last year, with a couple of them, Mathew Draper and Nigel Davers, competing in their first car race – both acquitting themselves very well during the day.

MSVR had taken on a very large entry for the meeting as a whole, and there were initial concerns about paddock space, but on the day it was fine, provided you avoided getting locked out of the circuit on the Saturday evening.

The fact it didn’t rain helped the organisers run what was a very slick programme, although TSL’s timing threw a major wobbly over the weekend due to buggy new software, and no one enjoyed the driver’s briefing location in the middle of the circuit. Eventually this caused several competitors to miss part of their practice session when the briefing ran late. That being said Signing On, Scrutineering and Race Management all worked well for us.

One issue which did raise its head during the day was driving standards. The on-track action was pretty hectic and various incidents, none too serious fortunately, brought out a couple of red flags, Safety Cars and many yellows. Several Mono drivers didn’t pay enough attention to these and the Clerk of the Course was kept busy handing out penalty points. Admittedly Brands tends to be a hectic circuit to lap in company, but it is really important that as Club we ensure that we do comply with flag signals – it’s essential for the safety of both the marshals and ourselves, so please sharpen up on this guys.

Scrutineering produced a drama for two of the new drivers when their race suits were found to be out of date, but the very friendly Monoposto crowd rapidly produced a couple of pairs of overalls on loan – great stuff!


Parki's very smooth AVITised Reynard	Phil Nicholson looks stunned by the quality of preparation of Julian Hoskins' Vector	Front runners Cliffe and Cameron discuss tactics – Tristan was horribly unlucky, but they very nearly worked for Arty!

Gary Hill’s lovely 1400 class Hayabusa-engined OMS	Hill in qualifying before an oil light prompted a strategic withdrawal	Nigel Davers took third in class (1600) in his first-ever race