Monoposto Championship Anglesey 23 May 2010 2000 and Classic

Qualifying

Jeremy Timms set the pace in Sunday’s qualifying, while Tristan Cliffe’s car sat in the pit lane as the Omicron crew wrestled with a nasty misfire, possibly due to water being spilt on the electronics during a hurried top-up. Eventually the car went out, still missing badly, but Tristan threw it round the track, incredibly taking pole away from Jeremy on his third lap out, only a tenth off his own newly established lap record. I have no idea how he did that. Richard Purcell and Adrian Holey were next up, with Malcolm Scott an excellent fifth. However this was achieved with water gushing out of the cooling system, cooking the head completely. Malcolm’s crew did a brilliant job to change the entire top end of the engine before the race, changing not just the head but also replacing the injection system with Webers.

The first four in the Classic were separated by a few tenths, Francis Phillips to the fore, followed by Russell Giles who had overcome his Saturday setback.

Race

The race was peculiar. There was a very long delay in the assembly area while a 3 wheeled TVR from the previous race was recovered veeeerrrrrrryyyyyy sloooooowlyyyy. Once the field was on the grid the 5 Second Board was shown and about 1 second afterwards on came the red lights, fortunately staying on for several seconds before the field was despatched. Jeremy Goodman stormed off the line and clipped Russell Giles, the dayglo and white Reynard ending up against the pit wall, well off the track, minus a couple of corners. It wasn’t a good weekend for Russell.

Into the lap it was Timms leading from Cliffe, with Goodman ahead of Phillips in the Classics, However immediately out came the Safety Car Flags and everyone came off the throttles at different times, resulting in some position shuffling and unshuffling which gave rise to some questions from officials afterwards, but no action was taken. The Safety Car proceeded to lap very slowly indeed, several competitors were in dire straights with overheating cars and slipping clutches.

Meanwhile two wrecker trucks emerged onto the pit straight and parked next to the stricken Reynard, and it became apparent that neither truck had any lifting capability. There was then a delay of several minutes before a rather aged tractor with a front loader joined them and succeeded in getting the disabled car onto a truck and away.

By the time the Safety Car pulled off there was only time for four laps, and they were frantic ones. Tristan Cliffe tried everything to get past Jeremy – if you thought the first race had some hot laps, then you really needed to see this! On his first full speed lap Jeremy was into the 1.04s, under Tristan’s Saturday record, and on the second full speed lap Tristan took the record back – and all while racing in very close company. Jeremy shaded the win, but it was just compelling to watch. Malcolm Scott took fourth overall, a well deserved reward for the team's work over the weekend, with Jeremy Goodman ahead of him to take his second win of the weekend.

Next up in Classics Francis Phillips and Geoff Fern were also very close, 0.109 apart at the end. Graham Read, who had started at the back with an inoperative clutch somehow survived the Pace Car and made his way to 9th overall, deservedly winning the Super Clutch Driver of the Day award as he did so.

So – it was different, it was eventually very exciting, but it may not have been quite what Championship motor racing should be…

Super Clutch DoD: Graham Read

Simon Davey

All opinions are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Monoposto Racing Club.

The safety car characterised the race

With the JPS parked up "Ayrton" Hughes chose to run the Agent

Mark Smith's Renault was, as usual, better presented than Kubica's

Malcolm Scott prepares to give asst ed a driving lesson

Pics Norwich Photo