Monoposto Championship Brands Hatch Indy, Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May 2011 1600

1600 Round Up. David Parkinson changes columnist role for reporter

Firstly. A little quiz.
What does Formula 1 and Mono 1600, only, out of the Mono classes have in common.
Answer at the end of the page.

1600 Saturday

The quiet man of the paddock Jeremy Timms snatched pole from Cousin Jason by 0.32 seconds with Nigel Davers in third place some 0.16 further behind. Yours truly finished in fourth followed by Eddie Guest, Dane Catanzaro, in his first outing of the year, and Joe Venor, back after destroying his engine at Snetterton, bringing up the rear. Geoff Fern, driving his newly acquired Formula Vauxhall, unfortunately only got a couple of hundred yards before an ignition problem stopped the car. If he carries on buying cars and running people at the rate he’s going he’ll need to buy a car transporter as an F1 unit will just not be big enough.

After qualifying both the Timms boys were stripping carbs etc to find out why their cars weren’t performing well enough. I had a problem as well so there.

Starting from pole, Jeremy Timms was never threatened and recorded the fastest lap on his way to the win. As in qualifying he was followed home by Jason and Nigel. Next to finish was Flavio Fern in the very nice looking Vauxhall and then me in my somewhat flat Reynard. Not an excuse as I’m sure Jeremy would have won in it. Eddie, Joe and Dane completed the finishers.

1600 Sunday

Another bright dry day and we discovered the problem with my car. A faulty plug lead. That didn’t alter anything though as again on pole was Jeremy, from Jason followed by Nigel and yours truly. Fourth was Mat Jordan. Actually, he’s Nigel Davers boss and was using the Fern Vauxhall for his first ever race meeting. Didn’t he do well. Eddie, Dane and Joe rounded out the results.

Incidentally Geoff. Next time you loan a car to someone can’t you make sure that they are fat and at least fifty.

The Timms boys though qualifying first and second both had problems. Jason had a rose joint break on the front end and Jeremy had a problem with something breaking on the flywheel. All hands to the pumps though and both cars made the start. Jeremy had to remove the entire back end to get to the flywheel so did well to make it.

I was talking to Richard Evans over the weekend. He tells me that he’s having problems getting his engine started and is not sure when he’ll be out again. Don’t take your car to that garage.

I was upset to learn that our esteemed coordinator, Simon Davey, lost control of his bicycle, whilst pedalling through the tunnel, and fell off, suffering severe damage to his ego. I trust the bruises will soon heal.

It seemed like the race was going to follow the trend with Jeremy setting fastest lap and going off into the lead but on lap 10 he crashed out when the steering wheel came off in his hands. The boy will do anything for a bit of attention as I understand he’d done three laps using the accelerator and brakes to steer. This let Jason in for the win with Nigel taking second and me third. Mat Jordan finished a very good fourth for his first ever race followed by Eddie, Joe and Dane.

Finally. The Quiz
F1 has five champions driving. These are Vettell, Button, Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher.
Mono 1600 also have 5 with Timms Jeremy and Jason, Fern, Davers and Parkinson.

David Parkinson

Classic Brands establishing shot (of a car from a different class)

David Parkinson at work

Jeremy Timms proves that, unlike some German drivers, you can come back and still dominate

The newly refettled Lola of Joe Venor ran flawlessly

pics: Nigel Bland