Monoposto Championship Donington Sunday 3 April 2011

Qualifying.

Your scribe, being one of the idle retired, was not present for qualifying so what follows is gleaned. In the dry the Dallarae of Tristan Cliffe and Richard Purcell were in a class of their own with times of 1:07.651 and 1:08.789 respectively. Nobody else was below 1:11, and the first of these, the Dallara of Anthony Bishop, was being packed up with a buzzed engine. This left Barry Smith to head Ian Hughes in the Harrison 'rent a drive Dallara' by 2/1000s. I didn’t meet Barry on Sunday, so was unable to ask whether it was he or his Van Diemen LX that enjoyed Donington Park so much, his was the first Classic, but Peter Venn had the Anson in the 1:11s, as was Terry Clark's FVL. Incidentally, Ian Hughes was delighted with his rent a drive, but he did look unemployed between sessions, not being allowed to work on the machine being a new experience.

Next up was Jared Wood with another FVL, but he did not race, could his be one of FVL's that turned into the paddock when the start of the race was delayed and did not reappear? Another who disappeared after qualifying was Kevin Mason. Kevin must have had a most unsatisfactory weekend as he was occupying an unaccustomed last place on the grid.
Jared was the first of six drivers in the 1:12s, most were to have an excellent race. This group included Malcolm Scott who had substituted a Van Diemen for the Dallara damaged on Saturday.

Race.

The largely slick shod field was caught by a torrential shower of rain as it moved from assembly to the grid. Conditions deteriorated so rapidly that the field was taken into the pit lane where the fortunate had a pit crew to fit their set of wets, while the less fortunate made their way back to the paddock to begin a fraught scramble to fit the wets with whatever help was in their vicinity. Somewhat to your scribe’s surprise an impressively large grid assembled.

Given the confusion it was no surprise that the grid was not quite perfect and one car that was out of position was the Van Diemen FX of Barry Smith, a withdrawn car contributed to him lining up a slot behind his allotted position. This may or may not have contributed to Barry making a storming start to take the lead of the race as the field dived into Redgate, dived seems an appropriate term in the circumstances. Losers off the line included the Dallarae of Tristan Cliffe with too much wheelspin and Ian Hughes, it was not going to be a Dallara race, and only the leader was going to see anything but a cloud of spray.

On the first lap Mark Schofield was the one to spin at Redgate. I watched several races and they all had a spinner in the same place, the lucky ones managed to drive away, Mark was not one of these, and the Safety Car was deployed to facilitate the removal of his Ralt, which lead to the Safety Car being deployed for a lap. Barry Smith made a great restart, leading Richard Purcell by 2s as they crossed the line and four seconds at the end of the second lap, Richard had Peter Venn challenging. It was then announced that Barry Smith had been penalised 10s for being in an incorrect position on the grid. Technically this penalty was correct, but it was the sort of infringement that arguably handicaps the driver rather than gives advantage, thus I am sure that I was not alone in hoping that Barry would pull out a lead of more than 10s. Barry was certainly trying, on occasion he was well out of line when rounding Redgate. But this did not look like happening as Richard Purcell closed on the leading Van Diemen, with Barry’s 10s penalty he was definitely in the lead, but was unlikely to know it, when on lap eight Richard had a spin as he entered Redgate, and stalled his Dallara into retirement. Thus Ian Hughes inherited the lead of the Mono2000 class, and third place overall, positions he occupied for a lap and a couple of hundred metres before he too spun into retirement at Hollywood. Attrition left the two or three cylinder Dallara of Tristan in the lead of the Mono2000 class and third overall. After the race Tristan claimed that having less power made his Dallara easier to drive in the prevailing conditions, but I don't believe that having an additional 50 or 100 bhp cutting in or out at random can make driving a Dallara on a wet Donington Park circuit easy.

Tristan had originally run seventh overall, but moved forward by demoting Graham Read's fast starting Dallara and Terry Clark's FVL. Eventually the retirements turned his fifth place overall into third. Malcolm Scott finish fifth overall, and second Mono2000 in his replacement Van Diemen, while Graham Read was 8th overall and third in class. Both of these drivers had participated in the splendid midfield battle, Malcolm tending to move forward through it while Graham moved in the opposite direction.

With the majority of the Dallarae not performing to their optimum the Classics took over. The results show that Peter Venn had the decency to finish 2.4s behind Barry Smith to take second in class. In reality, on the track, this represented 12.4s behind, close enough to keep those using watches and willing Barry on, on tenterhooks (whatever tenterhooks are). Like Barry, Peter had enough speed to stay clear of the main car to car action. Once again the mid-field group of classics showed that serious racing, in challenging conditions does not have to include retirements, but inevitably there were incidents.

Kevin Otway bought his FVL home fourth overall, but on Sunday this still only represented third in class, he displaced Malcolm Scott on the last lap. Mike Kinghorn in the Novis had a good start but fell back through this group during the final lap with an incident costing him three places, but still he finished sixth, O.6 s behind in seventh was Lenny Colman in the red Reynard. This car had a failed starter motor, and Lenny races solo. Simon had organised a pushing party to persuade the recalcitrant Reynard to fire up, the rain must have been especially trying, but Lenny made it all worthwhile by driving with his usual dexterity in the wet, bringing the Reynard from the tail of the field up to seventh place. Terry Clarke, like Kevin Otway had been keeping the FVL flag flying near the front of the midfield group but an incident on lap eight lost him four places and dropped him to eighth.

Jim Timms had a better run in his Van Diemen LX, but the Reynards of Francis Phillips and Russ Giles were further back than one would anticipate. Simon Lonnergan (FVL) was comfortably ahead of Tony Cotton the latter having his first meeting in the stylish rebuilt green Dallara.

Several of drivers expressed come reservations about racing at Donington in wet conditions, After his experience at Silverstone these included Tony Cotton, the last unlapped runner, and Steven Griffin who was lapped once, they drove sensibly for a finish. The final place was occupied by the twice lapped Antonio Impieri in a Renault run by the Woodhouse establishment.
Lou Watts retired his FVL on lap 2.

Fastest laps were set by Ian Hughes and Barry Smith. Donington always lacks grip when it rains, the difficulty experienced by competitors can be judged by the fact that their times were some 20s slower than a dry time.

Patrick Huston.

Disclaimer: The above represents only the unofficial view of the writer and not of the Monoposto Racing Club in any way whatsover.

And finally......

Tenterhooks were the nail-like pins used for holding woollen cloth to a frame to dry. Since weavers got paid by area, the clever thing was to stretch the cloth as much as possible - on the tenterhooks - without tearing or distorting it. It could suddenly go, hence - tenterhooks. Pic from exetermemories.co.uk

No pics yet of Sunday and no report of Saturday so here are Saturday's pics, thanks to Norwich Photo/Andrew Cliffe

Ian Hughes leads Tony Bishop, Terry Clarke and Graham Read

Terry and Graham again

Man of the weekend Barry Smith, Richard Purcell and Malcolm Scott

Kevin Otway ahead of Russ Giles

Simon Lonnergan leads Tony Cotton, Jim Timms and Jared Wood