FOSTER CLAIMS FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL
FF1600 legend Joey Foster takes hat-trick of Festival wins. By Stefan Mackley
Those in the know say that to win the Formula Ford Festival you need a combination of speed, experience and a little bit of luck. Joey Foster found he had heaps of all three as he took his third Festival win – 13 years after his last triumph – sealing it with an incredible overtaking move around the outside into Paddock Hill Bend which will live long in the memory.
The 35-year-old was the man to beat of the 75 entries at Brands Hatch from the outset, taking pole for heat one and romping to victory on a damp but drying track against a field containing 2017 National Formula Ford champion, Luke Williams, and current Scottish Formula Ford champion, Ross Martin.
Foster didn’t have everything his own way in the semi-final, though, starting second behind the Van Diemen JL13 of Matt Cowley due to winning the slowest of the three heats.
The 2009 Australian F3 champion and ex-british GT racer soon found himself locked in a three-car fight with Cowley and Irishman Keith Donegan, dropping to third at the midway point.
But Foster proved he would be the man to beat in the final with two near-identical overtakes against Donegan then Cowley on the inside of Clearways to claim victory.
It was Cliff Dempsey Racing’s Neil Maclennan who would start on pole though for the final and perhaps the only driver capable of challenging Foster having charged through to win his semi-final from third.
A strong start from Maclennan in his Ray GR09 ensured he held fellow frontrow starter Foster at bay for the initial tours, with a gaggle of cars including Chris Middlehurst, Cowley and Donegan in hot pursuit.
Three cars finding the gravel at Paddock Hill brought out the safety car on lap five of the 20-lap affair, closing the field up even further.
Despite getting the jump on his rivals at the restart Maclennan was soon driving defensive lines and the decisive move came just prior to halfway. Maclennan kept to the inside into Paddock Hill as Foster risked it all and swept around the outside, coming within millimetres of the gravel in a pass that brought gasps and cheers from the crowd.
“He [Maclennan] was defending so heavily and I got a good slip stream,” recalled Foster. “I’d tried it [the pass] in the semi-final and it didn’t work but when I pulled it off I thought I’m going to remember that for a while.
“I was either going to make it or end up in the gravel.”
As Foster tried to escape, a frenetic battle was taking place behind, with Maclennan losing second to Cowley at Paddock Hill and then third to Donegan seconds later into Druids.
The charging Donegan, who’d setup his Van Diemen JL13K to come on strong in the latter stages, had battled his way through from sixth and was proving to be the fastest man on track, setting a 50.579s on lap 12, which would remain unbeaten.
His hunt for the victory came ever nearer as three laps from home Cowley took an excursion through the Paddock Hill gravel, rejoining down in sixth.
The luck that so many had said was needed to tame the Festival became evident on the final lap, as a popular win for Foster almost disappeared within sight of the flag.
An electrical problem was causing the engine aboard his Ray GR08 to occasionally lose full power allowing Donegan to close on the final tour and finish just 0.107s behind at the flag.
“I lost a bit of power and it felt like one more lap and we would lose the lead,” said a relieved Foster.
For 20-year-old Donegan, second place was a fantastic result, having only raced sporadically this year and he provisionally holds a ticket to the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout, but Mazda has yet to confirm his place.
“I have had three seconds this year and each time I’ve thought I just need one more lap,” he said.
“If I had one more lap maybe I could have made a move.”
A delighted Maclennan took third and was left to admire the pass which had seen him concede the lead and any realistic chance of victory.
“I take my hat off to Joey, that move he pulled there was pretty unreal,” said Maclennan. “I thought at one point ‘nah, you’ve lost it’ and then no, when he got it back, when he got it to the bottom I thought ‘he’s got this.’”
Fourth went the way of Josh Smith who’d been left frustrated in his semi final after his car kept jumping out of gear, forcing him to come through from 10th on the grid in the final.
Former Mclaren Autosport BRDC Award finalist Chris Middlehurst was muscled down the field from his starting position of third and finished back in fifth place, just ahead of Cowley who was left to rue his late offtrack excursion.
The trio of Darren Burke, Noel Robinson and Matt Round-garrido had been locked in a race-long battle and finished together in seventh, eighth and ninth.
Former Castle Combe Saloons champion Jason Cooper completed the top 10 in his Swift SC16 with an impressive drive, staying out of trouble and capitalising on others’ mistakes. Younger brother Luke had shown great pace throughout the weekend, but contact with Burke heading up to Druids and then a spin in frustration at his lack of progress in the final dropped him to 14th at the flag when running strongly inside the top 10.
But the 2017 Festival belonged to Foster, now with the knowledge that he is the man to beat as the Formula Ford fraternity heads to Silverstone and the Walter Hayes Trophy. An event he has won three times already…
Ed Hayes confirmed his position as this year’s star driver in the BRSCC Porsche Championship by securing a hardfought hat-trick of race victories in the final round of the season at Brands Hatch.
The newly crowned series champion made a flying start in a sodden race one to leapfrog double Rockingham race winner and pole position holder James Coleman and lead the chasing pack on the opening tour. Behind the top two, Adam Southgate held third ahead of Garry Lawrence, but a wild spin at Graham Hill on lap two dropped the latter back several places. Southgate had a similar grassy moment at Surtees shortly after but maintained third, while Hayes and Coleman were able to break clear.
After hounding Hayes for the entire race, Coleman’s hopes of victory disappeared on the last lap when he spun and slammed into the tyre wall exiting Druids. Hayes eased to victory thereafter ahead of Southgate and Richard Avery.
Coleman was in the wars again in the second race, hitting the rear of Lawrence’s similar Boxster at Graham Hill as the pair battled over third. Lawrence emerged unscathed and held the position to the flag behind Avery and the victorious Hayes. Avery looked set for race three glory after overcoming early pacesetter Southgate, but Hayes produced a demon pass at Paddock Hill on the penultimate lap to end his title season in fitting style.
In the 924 class, Pip Hammond erased the memory of a nightmare weekend at Rockingham to secure the title with victory in race one. David Jones recovered from spinning off in the opener to claim the spoils in races two and three respectively.
Adriano Medeiros was another driver to enjoy title success, claiming his second successive Classic Formula Ford 1600 championship despite not topping the podium over the weekend. Scott Mansell narrowly beat the Royale RP26 of category legend Rick Morris to claim an emotional success in a wet first encounter in his Crossle 35F. Mark Armstrong won race two in his Van Diemen RF80 after Mansell and Medeiros tangled at Druids dicing for the lead on the first lap.
After a crash in his heat denied him a chance of appearing in the Festival showpiece, Jake Byrne hoped victory in the sole Formula Ford Masters event would offer some consolation. He gave his all to overcome a superb defensive drive by the Spectrum 012 of John Ferguson but missed out by a mere 0.068s. Felix Fisher tried to do likewise in the Historic Festival for pre-90, ’82 and ’72 cars, but Klaus-dieter Hackel emerged victorious in his Van Diemen RF88 after other potential race winners Mark Armstrong and Conor Murphy were eliminated in a first corner shunt.
Steven Dailly kept it clean to beat season-long title rival James Gornall in both BMW Compact Cup encounters, but two runner-up finishes confirmed Gornall’s second consecutive championship win. Owen Hunter and Samuel Carrington Yates fought each other hard to claim a third apiece.
Peter Barrable was another champion to be crowned, finishing fourth in the first combined Irish Supercar/global GT Lights event to wrap up the Supercar title. Graeme Colfer won the opener, while Bob Cameron fended off the GT Lights trio of James Thompson, Conor Farrell and Max Drennan to win race two.
Paul Trayhurn and reigning champion Michael Gibbins shared the wins in the two Sports 2000 Duratec/pinto races.
The Historic Formula Ford Championship ended as it had spent the entire season: locked in wheel-to-wheel combat. Richard Tarling was mighty under pressure to win both the second race and the title, but race one winner Michael O’brien did everything right, only to be put out of the picture with a puncture.
“That was so close: I knew I had to win, whatever,” said Tarling after winning the second race following an intense battle with Cameron Jackson. In the opener, contact with Jackson sent Tarling spinning back to sixth. With O’brien winning from Callum Grant, the pendulum swung away from Tarling with just one race to go.
O’brien did everything right and was strongly placed when debris pierced a rear tyre and his pace dropped away before retirement. It was a bitter end to a fine 2017 campaign. However, Tarling still needed to beat Jackson and worked the tow down the national straight to perfection to be in just the right place when the flag came out.
An epic performance from Michael Lyons, on slicks on a damp track, cut through gathering gloom on Saturday afternoon and netted himself an implausible Derek Bell Trophy victory.
As light rain began to dampen the track, Lyons fired the family Eagle FA74 into the lead but then dived for the pits when the gear lever popped out. Swift work with a hammer sorted a temporary fix and Lyons charged back into the race, a lap down on Jamie Brashaw’s March 73A. The task seemed insurmountable, but the slippery track played to Lyons’ outstanding car control and, after un-lapping himself, he flew back up to Brashaw and scythed ahead at the final corner. In the dry on Sunday Lyons repeated the result but the hardcharging Brashaw gave determined pursuit and stayed within five seconds of the flying Eagle.
Andrew Hibberd featured prominently in two cracking races on Saturday and won one and lost one. His victory in the Historic Formula 3 finale was a stunner as he went wheel-to-wheel with newlycrowned champion Jon Milicevic.
No one was more pleased to have Hibberd on the grid than Milicevic and their battle at the head of the pack was every bit as good as had been hoped. It was real cat-andmouse stuff and they were side-by-side on the last-lap dash to the flag, where Hibberd got the nod by seven-hundredths of a second. Ahead of them in the concurrent Historic Formula Libre race was Mark Goodyear in his Lotus 59.
Hibberd ran Cameron Jackson close in the opening rear-engined Formula Junior race and had to claw back time lost in mid-race traffic to attack the leading Brabham once more on the final lap. However, Jackson was not about to be rattled and won by a fifth-of-a-second.
Alan Cook scored an unexpected Classic Clubmans win when Mark Charteris went out with transmission failure and John Harrison had a late spin that bent his rear wing. Meanwhile, Charles Barter signed off his title season with a resounding 70s Road Sports victory.
Mark Woodhouse claimed a brace of wins in the front-engined Formula Juniors, but in both races a slippery moment at Becketts – one from a rain shower and one from oil – grabbed his attention as Nick Taylor chased in his similar Elva 100.
Father and son Michael and Will Schryver emerged best of the Chevron pack in the Guards Trophy race. Meanwhile, the Historic Road Sports decider was full of intrigue once restarted after a fiery incident at Becketts when the fuel tank was detached from the spinning Elan of Barry Davison. An instant fire was quickly dealt with and everyone emerged unharmed.
Will Plant needed a class maximum to be in the running for a shared Road Sports title with Peter Shaw, and both Plant and John Davison gave themselves an early handicap. Plant’s Morgan was in neutral when the lights went out and Davison had a spin at Brooklands. Will’s father Richard cut the early pace but did not defend when Will caught up. Davison dived through to second at the expense of his class rival Shaw, leaving it all to a tie-break also involving the Turner of Dick Coffey.
Peter Hallford oversteered his Ford Mustang to a double win in Historic Touring Cars but that was not enough to deny Steve Platts the overall title in his Singer Chamois. However, Platts had a massive late scare when he was unable to avoid clattering the spinning Ford Anglia 100E of Ed Glaister. The Singer was a little battle scarred but Platts survived to give the Imp family its eighth title in 16 seasons.
New champion Andrew Park reminded everyone of his pace in Historic FF2000 to take a brace of wins while Gaius Ghinn bagged a Classic F3 double as the evergreen Richard Trott and Ian Flux led the chase.