Motorsport News

RAFTEAMSOA­RSTOBIRKET­TGLORY

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For the third time in 10 years, a team from the RAF Motorsport­s Associatio­n won the Birkett Six Hour Relay race at Silverston­e as Armed Forces Race Challenge (AFRC) organiser Chris Slator led his squad to handicap honours.

While none of the five drivers that combined to claim the prize for RAFMSA this season were involved in 2008, Slator and Darren Howe were part of the 2011 winning team, with their Peugeot and Volkswagen Golf this year joined by Dan Smith’s Ford Fiesta and BMWS for Scott Lawson and Ed Mckean, who saw them home. He picked up the baton in a strong position, with the team leading from two-thirds distance, although they had languished in 27th after two hours. Maintainin­g a consistent pace is key in the AFRC – in which all five drivers regularly compete – which stood them in good stead for the Birkett.

A squad of Mk5 Golfs – the Production GTI Gentlemen being Luke Schlewitz, Andy Baylie, Rob Sadler, James Howlison and Peter Cross – finished within a minute of RAFMSA, the gap between the leading duo barely changing in the final hour. Locost squad Team Sellars Racing had been well-placed going into the final phase, but slipped from third to eighth in the end. Earlier, team boss Stuart Sellars enjoyed a memorable battle with the huge Mercedes 600 SEL of Chris Harris, part of a Top Gear team that also included Matt Leblanc in a Bentley Continenta­l and Rory Reid in a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, as well as the inevitable Dacia Sandero. They finished second from bottom in both scratch and handicap standings.

With the demise of TSR, BMW squad Team Osman – family members Yusuf, Senna and Cemal, and Jody Halse – completed the podium. Rogue’s Troopers salvaged fourth in spite of two cars blowing up in qualifying. Stuart Nicholls hopped from his Toyota MR2 to one of two Toyota GT86S, alongside Giles Groombridg­e, Martin Farrelly and Cam Walton, who was driving with a strappedup wrist that he injured in a shunt at Thruxton in August.

Caterham outfits Six Sevens and Gradsports completed the top six, although the former fielded only four drivers.

The Scratch race was disputed by three Radical squads. Last year’s winners had rebadged themselves as Breakell’s Nightmare in response to James Breakell selecting an eponymous Racing Heroes team. Both were beaten, however, by SR3 RSX triumvirat­e John and Brian Macleod as well as Tom Harvey, collective­ly known as Dobbers. “I was a bit nervous but I kept it on the circuit,” said Tom after completing the final stint. “We had two laps in hand so I didn’t want to do anything silly.”

It was an almost perfectly executed plan, whereas their rivals both had problems. Racing Hero Joe Stables popped a ’diff on his PR6 after just a couple of laps of his stint, four hours in, effectivel­y dropping them out of contention. The team had led by a lap at the two-hour mark, thanks to the efforts of Bikesports champion Stefano Leaney, but Julian Caldwell’s car broke down at Woodcote and had to be pushed back to the pits in the third hour, losing the team the lead. Joe’s father Richard and Charles Graham completed that team, which finished second.

Among the difficulti­es for the thirdplace­d Nightmare team was confusion over a stop-go penalty, which caused Aaron Bailey to make multiple pit visits before it was eventually served by Simon Garmiston. Saker squad JPR Motorsport was a distant fourth, hampered by a fuel pressure issue on Paul Rose’s car.

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