Monoposto Championship Anglesey 22 May 2010 2000 and Classic

The Mono Championship's only foreign championship round of the year also coincided with the warmest weekend of 2010. After the massive 2 litre entry at Brands and Thruxton it was slightly disappointing to see 16 cars line up for their first qualifying session. However there’s no doubt that the cars in these Mono classes look great, and are very serious about the level of competition.

The event witnessed another Jeremy Timms/Tristan Cliffe battle for pole position with Tristan claiming a fine sub-lap record pole despite stopping on the circuit before practise ended with an electrical problem. Richard Purcell's injected F300 was reluctant to fire up in the assembly area but once going clearly showed its potential in only its second meeting with a 3rd. Adrian Holey, having his first run in the Harrison Dallara, was 4th on the grid. Adrian has significant racing experience and success, but hasn’t previously handled such a powerful single seater (though some of his Classic F3 stuff comes close). He impressed all weekend, gradually working up his pace without ever looking to being over his limit. 5th was the first non-Dallara and Classic 2000 runner Geoff Fern. This had required some nippy spanner work as he only had one rear wing plane to share between his two cars, necessitating swapping between each session. An unkind commentator would contrast this with events last year where Geoff appeared to have an inexhaustible supply of front wings…Francis Phillips was second up in Classics, complaining of snap oversteer in the Reynard, and Russ Giles third – a good start to what was to become a difficult weekend.

Kevin Mason had a troubled practise with two rallycross moments onto the start finish straight, the result being 9th quickest. Malcolm Scott found that Thruxton ratios weren’t great for Anglesey and Jeremy Goodman’s exhaust fell off - twice - which kept the pit lane and the Mono Administrator busy and resulted in a back row starting position. Tony Cotton had his first official run in the immaculate Ray Rowan-built ex-Jaguar Racing Dallara F300. This car has no visible electrical wiring, it must be the tidiest Dallara ever. Tony went well all weekend, running strongly and drama-free in the mid field pack.

Race

After 3 endurance (for the spectators) races, the 2 litre race finally reached the grid at 5.15 pm. The overall race result was always going to be a Jeremy/Tristan affair. Jeremy Timms took the lead off the start, with Tristan Cliffe a close watching second, and Adrian Holey in the class 3rd, mixed up with the Classic pack which was lead by Francis Phillips, Jeremy Goodman having rocketed up the field into class second early on, whereas pole man Geoff Fern had decided the circuit grass needed shortening. Also early on Kevin Mason and Lou Watts tangled; with the KDM Racing Dallara out on the spot, and for the rest of the weekend, with a broken rear corner.

Lap four was HOT. Leader Timms was only 0.1 seconds over the lap record, but second placed man Cliffe was 0.1 seconds under it: quality racing. On lap five Cliffe made a clean pass into the lead on the back straight. Jeremy stayed closed but was wide onto the grass by a backmarker. He lapped within a few tenths of Tristan’s pace but the gap increased when lappery commenced. After 14 laps Tristan celebrated his first victory of 2010 by 2.5 secoonds and a new lap record..

Behind the lead battle Richard Purcell kept the lead battle in site until fuel issues curtailed his race on lap 13, a little ironic as he had generously loaned fuel to his paddock neighbour. Hence Monoposto newcomer Adrian Holey inherited 3rd but only after completing a recovery from 6th place on lap 1 after a poor start .Even more progress was made by Jeremy Goodman as after a 16th grid position he leapt to 9th at the end of lap 1 and continued his impressive progress by being 5th by lap 9. Winning the Classic 2000 class was a fine result in a car approaching 30 years old. He finished at the front of major mid-field brawl involving Malcolm Scott (on the right ratios) Graham Read (with clutch problems), Terry Clark, Tony Cotton and Russ Giles. It was great to watch, in particular Graham Read who, after languishing in 12th place early on with a major clutch problem fought through to 7th, lapping 2 seconds faster than in practise and 5th quickest overall. Graham benefited a place from Russ Giles's misfortune on the final bend when he hert-stoppingly and heart-breakingly spun away 3rd in class and 7th place overall, eventually finishing in 10th.

Geoff Fern ended a miserable day by retiring on laps 5, yet stayed smiling as always. As the field came back to the assembly area it became clear that Lou Watts was out for the weekend, the FVL sounding like a bag of nails in a concrete mixer as the gearbox internals disintegrated.

Simon Davey & Nigel Bland

(We were in the embarrassing position of having two excellent reports, so like a dodgy second hand car dealer asst ed brutally welded the two together so that Nigel and Simon could both feel justifiably upset)

The assembly area

Malcolm Scott leads Russ Giles

Lou Watts ahead of Kevin Mason with rear damage

Tristan and Jeremy - side by side.

Jeremy Goodman and Francis Philips, side by side.

Pics Norwich Photo and Simon Davey