Eventful Simpson plot for hectic Easter meeting
BRANDS HATCH BARC 31 MARCH-1 APRIL
Pickups and their heavyweight brethren were rivals for top billing at the Easter truck extravaganza at Brands Hatch and, while Matt Simpson starred among the Pickups, Ryan Smith also commanded attention as he chases a ninth British Trucks title.
Engine gremlins in qualifying left Simpson at the back of the first Pickups grid. Instead, early leader Dale Gent came under pressure from quickest qualifier Chris Brockhurst, with Dean Tompkins on their tail. A bold move by Brockhurst on the final lap resulted in contact with Gent and Tompkins being delayed. Bursting through the confusion came the recovering Simpson for an unexpected win, with
Mark Willis second and Tompkins third.
Through more chaos in race two came Simpson, seemingly having got rid of all his bad luck in qualifying. He won under heavy pressure from Gent while five pickups fought over third, Paul Tompkins grabbing the place. Simpson was left to rue a firstlap mistake on a drying track in the final that dropped him to the back. A series of fastest laps brought him into contention, although he could only make it to fifth in a race won by Allen Cooper.
A modest dozen full-sized trucks came to Brands, only three of them in Division 2. Sunday’s qualifying-based races were easy for series dominator Smith, even with a lack of boost in race two. David Jenkins was runner-up twice, and Michael Oliver fought his way past John Bowler for two third places. Paul Rivett, meanwhile, was a double Division 2 winner.
But Smith’s task got much harder in Monday’s reversed-grid encounters.
Local man Steven Powell clung on by his fingertips to inflict a rare defeat on Smith in the third race, the reigning champion overcoming everyone else in a terrific drive from eighth on the grid. Powell described “the hardest race of my life” in a truck rebuilt from a writeoff at the disastrous 2023 finale.
Rivett’s Division 2 truck won overall in race four, which was thrown into chaos by heavy rain and was halted with two trucks in the barriers protecting the road to the outer paddock. Smith, blinded by a steamed-up windscreen, fell off at Surtees
and got stuck on the grass for a lap.
Twice red-flagged for accidents on the Brabham Straight and at Paddock, race five was stopped again with a truck off at Druids. Jenkins was in front when the result was declared and Stuart Oliver aggressively defended second from Smith, while Rivett completed his full house of class triumphs.
Stephen Berry’s coupe-shaped Cooper S was the most prolific winner in last year’s inaugural non-championship Mini Challenge Clubsport series, but he was well beaten in the first three of the 2024 races by Ross Alexander’s conventional example. Berry initially seemed to have nailed saturated conditions in race three, but was reeled in by Alexander.
Harry Smith was in a class of his own in both Junior Saloon races, which were enlivened by some energetic battles for the minor placings. The second, run in a cloudburst, was halted after a heavy collision at Paddock. Meanwhile, Andy Preece in a ZR won Sunday’s two MG Owners’ Club races, which were also both ended early by red flags.