MITCHELL MAKES IT FIVE WINS
The epic struggle between Ben Mitchell, Cameron Jackson and reigning champion Richard Tarling for the Historic Formula Ford title passed half way with another combative weekend at Brands Hatch embroiling capacity 38-car grids.
A clash between leaders Mitchell and Jackson at Sheene Curve on Saturday gifted Tarling his second maximum of the season, but Jackson and Mitchell escaped the gravel to salvage second and third respectively after what they deemed a racing incident. “I was extremely surprised that they got out,” said Tarling.
Twelve points ahead of Jackson entering the fifth of nine double-headers, top qualifier Mitchell bounced back to eke another point’s advantage with a hard-earned fifth win from 10 races in a Merlyn Mk20.
Jackson rounded poleman Mitchell to lead at Paddock, but 2013 champ Sam Mitchell and Tarling went with them and double champion Callum Grant and Ben Tusting (who fell with radiator cap failure), Ed Thurston and Max Bartell were in the mix. When Sam Mitchell threw his Merlyn sideways and spun to avoid his brother, whose similar car jumped out of second gear accelerating out of Graham Hill Bend – “a brilliant save”, remarked Ben – he fell to 23rd as the elder Mitchell fought back to lead again.
“When I got a bit sideways at Westfield, Cameron got a run on me so we arrived side by side at Sheene,” said Mitchell.
“It was tight, but I was launched by the kerb on the apex,” said Jackson. As he countered his Lola T200’s landing with opposite lock, front-wheel contact sent them both into the shingle.
“I wasn’t really quick enough to race them, but I thought something might happen and it did,” said beneficiary Tarling, with a rear-suspension pick-up point failing on his Jamun T2. Jackson and Mitchell, their steeds pebble-dashed, joined him on the podium, fortunate to have kept going.
Grant, overheating, finished a distant fourth, while Sam Mitchell recovered strongly to seventh behind Thurston and Bartell. Tiff Needell – one of two Le Mans veterans competing – won a tough Over 50s class tussle in his Autosport Lotus 69.
Sunday’s grid was again full, so Lotus 61 stalwart Dick Dixon sportingly stood down to give the sole reserve, Michael Rasper (whose Merlyn MK11A was repaired by a paddock posse after a Saturday incident) another run.
Jackson led initially, but fell to seventh when he took too much kerb at Stirlings on lap two. Flicked sideways into the gravel, he narrowly missed the barrier on the exit of the left-hander. Watched by the Merlyn’s first owner Rob Cooper, Ben Mitchell then eased clear to win on the first anniversary of his debut in it.
Tarling, a fired-up Grant and Sam Mitchell disputed second before Jackson caught them and seized it for himself. Tarling finished third, despite a front wishbone ripping out, ahead of Grant and the younger Mitchell, angry to have had his helmet dinged by “a line of flint” that he and Grant found on track at Stirlings on the last lap. Needell again reigned supreme among the ‘seniors’.