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Just to show that you get great value you get from 1/8th two reports for the price of one, a BOGOF no less. BROOKLANDS Now I’d like to tell you that we had a great meeting at Brookland’s on the 21st of May, and for Saturdays practice we did. We also had a reasonable day for the first three qualifying heats in round one on Sunday even though it was cold, but then sadly it rained, and rained and rained an awful lot more. In the end with several of the corners on the circuit having turned into lakes and most of the track under a huge puddle of water it was decided to award points based on qualifying. Not a satisfactory solution and one we need to look into at next years AGM.
For the record Andrew Hastings was first, John Carr second and Chris Edwards third. With that being our third meeting out of four that has been rain affected Lets hope that Tibshelf brings us some much needed dry weather and some SUN!!!!! TIBSHELF Thankfully our prayers for the Tibshelf weekend on the 11th of June were answered and the sun shone all weekend, and boy did it shine with temperatures well into the mid- thirties. Thankfully everyone had been suitably warned beforehand (following Wombwell and Brooklands) and I didn’t hear one person say it was” too hot”. Main talking points on Saturday was the excessive tyre wear, and even worse many peoples inability to achieve a five minute run on a tank of fuel. Back early on Sunday for the racing saw six heats of qualifying. From as early as the second heat when James Connolly recorded a 24 lapper it was evident that at the very least a fast 24 or a 25 lap heat was needed for a place in the A final. Many of the drivers present had the ability to record times near to those required and in many cases it was simply down to a click of the stopwatch and how you handled the traffic as where you finished. That was evident by the top three of Gareth Bell, Pete Hastings and Neil Diver who all managed 25 laps and separated by just over two seconds.
With the temperatures soaring the second round produced much of the same with many drivers despite all there efforts in between rounds finding just a few scant but, oh! so important seconds over there first round efforts. I think the majority of drivers were struggling for five minutes run time, and the pit lane even during the heats was always busy with drivers adopting splash and dash tactics. That culminated in Neil Diver finding a 25/303 that would eventually secure him his first ever FTD. Before the last round of qualifying almost all the drivers knew that they needed at a minimum a very fast 24 lapper to have any chance of the A final. In the early heats even 23’s by now were out of it as far as the A was concerned. However in heat five Phil Jones 24/303, Chris Edwards 24/304, Chris Heath 24/305, and Jason Frost 24/307 showed just how competitive it was getting. The last heat was strangely subdued with Neil’s 25/308 the best, Richard Hicklin found a 24/302 on a SOB run for a place in the A. With qualifying over it was for many a case for many of “if only”, but sadly that’s racing. The results of the lower finals are on the website if you want to see or can bare to see where you finished. The B final was won in fine style on 93 laps by Andrew Hastings, with James Connelly on the same lap, and Ian Campbell third a lap down. With fuel consumption and tyre wear problems very evident I think all the A finalists thought long and hard about there set up and tactics for the final. Even though it was late afternoon the A final still started in sunny and stiflingly hot condition’s, and right from the off was run at a fast and furious pace. With many of the drivers pitting as early as four minutes keeping a track on events was always going to be difficult. Thankfully a monitor in the pits and the excellent scoreboard helped everyone. To be fair to the other drivers the final developed into a fantastic three way struggle between Neil Diver Gareth Bell and Tim Wood. On very different strategies it would have been a brave man to have predicted a winner. Late in the final Neil began to struggle for tyres and he began to fall away slightly. That left Gareth and Tim fighting for the top spot. In the end after 30 minutes racing it was settled by all of 0.2 of a second. The final result being Gareth Bell 144 laps 30/08.4, Tim second 144 laps 30/08.6, and Neil third on 142 laps.
A fabulous high speed weekend of racing in brilliant weather conditions, that in a small way makes up for the three wet meetings this season. See you all at Crystal Palace.
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