Brands Hatch, June

What a good weekend! We qualified poorly for a change and were only 7th on the grid. But Mark likes Brands and when the flag dropped (as they say) the bullshit stopped.

By lap 4 he was 2nd and closing down on John Clark's very quick Cooper bobtail. however as Mark continued his dice with Chris Phillips, they came across some oil, Mark tried to avoid it, missed (as it were) and spun down to 4th place. Thereafter all he could do was hold that position until the end. An unlucky return for what started as a storming drive.

Up front (as usual) frank Sytner ran away with things in his superb Cooper Monaco. Will anyone beat him this year?? Will Frank remain the most hated man in Historic Racing?????

No pictures, sorry guys, just one of those weekends. Worst hotel of the year by the way At the dire Holiday Inn Express by the Dartford Tunnel. It would have had more atmosphere in the |Tunnel......

Cheers!!

Silverstone, May

A good race for us as this is a power circuit and there were some seriously quick cars there. Peter Austin's superb Lola Mk1(right) was always going to have the edge on the GP circuit. Running in our class B, the Lola is a unique car featuring a twin cam engine and a Hewland transaxle. We reckoned we were giving him up to 50 bhp.

Still we qualified 4th in class and that boded well. Much of the free session was lost when a coil lead came adrift but we still had 2 qualifying sessions even though various FIA sanctioned c**k ups meant that we only had the one race. Additionally we had the ludicrous scenario where "at some time" during the qualifying a full course yellow would be shown as a "practice" as no safety car would be deployed during our race. The driver's were not happy with this and in the second session we lost exactly half of our whilst over zealous marshal's waved flags for a total of 12 minutes.

Engineer fiddles, whilst anxious driver looks on

In the race. Frank Sytner set off into the distance and was never headed. He was chased manfully by Peter Hardman in his Ferrari 246 and Whizzo slid into 3rd in his Tojeiro Jaguar.

The field became well spread out as first Alan Minshaw dropped the oil from his (otherwise) immaculate Birdcage on lap 1. (A shame as Alan had impressed us greatly in the assembly area by suddenly performing at least 10 press ups. At least someone said they were press ups. One wag did point out from the back of the grid that the lady had already gone!)

Anyway further oil dropping occurred when Neil Davies' Lotus 11 let go in a big way and flooded the circuit. These resulted in a couple of spinners amongst the class A boys (Stuart Graham was one in his Lister Jag) and after that it was a case of dodging oil slicks and making sure the cars lasted until the end.

In our class Peter led from start to finish chased home eventually by Jorn Qviste in his Lotus 17 ad John Clarke in his Cooper Bobtail. Mark came 4th after a good dice late on with Chris Phillips as the 11's clutch started to drag. So a good start to the BRDC season. I think the massed crowd of about 27 enjoyed it as well. We hope we will be more competitive on the tighter circuits where power will be less of an issue. Look out Peter!

Next stop, Pau!

Here's the power pack, looking good apart from a slipping clutch

Rules

 There are three classes for cars built between 1947 and the end of 1960, the classic age of sports car racing that featured regular British success in the Le Mans 24 Hour Race. The cars are prepared to the FIA Appendix K Technical Regulations for Historic Sports Racing Cars. Class A is for cars with engines over 2 litres, Class B for cars with engines up to 2 litres all built between 1 January 1954 and 31 December 1960, and Class C for cars with any engine capacity, built between 1 January 1947 and 1 January 1954, with cars built up to 31 December 1956, where the design was originated and raced prior to 1 January 1954.

Awards: Trophies to 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall, and the other class winners.

Points System 15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 to the first ten finishers in each class.

The proposed schedule for this year is as follows:

I'm glad to say the our Lotus 11 has been accepted for the Championship and, subject to acceptance, we aim to contest all the races. The car is the ex Tony Noble 11 with which Tony contested the championship last season. Let's hope we acquit ourselves well this year!.