SOFAKINGSWERETHEFASTESTINROR
The Sofa King Fast team of Caroline Everett, Jay Mccormack and James Beardwell led home a quartet of Caterham teams, as they dominated this year’s Race of Remembrance.
The first six-hour part of the race ran in dry conditions until 2100hrs on Saturday and early on the British Sports Car Services Lotus Exige of Alan Henderson, Xavier Brooke, Nicolas Maduz and Tim Gray set the pace, before Mccormack gave Sofa King a spell of leadership on the 62nd lap.
Later into the evening Gray pitted with severe vibration and handling problems with the Exige, but they fared better than the Datum Motorsport 1 Exige, which Wade Eastwood had into second before Charles Graham crashed out at Turn 1 in the third hour.
The Caterhams were also a relay class and, after four hours, Mad Cat Racing’s Douglas Thain/matthew Welch had a lap on fellow Caterham crews Sofa King and CTS Motorsport 2 (Peter Reynolds/ Peter Walters/geoff Price).
The safety car had plenty of action into the night as did the stop-go penalty box. When the flag came out to end part one, it was Mccormack to the fore for Sofa King, with Mad Cat’s Welch one lap down, from Team Tivarney’s Tom John.
The Datum Motorsport 2 Elise of John Lamaster and Craig Denman was the first non-caterham in fourth place, before more Caterhams in CTS Motorsport 1’s Russ Olivant and APB Racing’s Andrew Burd completed the top six.
Sunday started wet and continued in similar showery conditions but the Sofa King trio continued to dominate and only lost the lead during the exchanges in the pits, although none of the top four could be completely discounted.
Beardwell was given the privilege of taking it to the flag for Sofa King, with only the CTS Motorsport 1 car in Rob Watts’s hands on the same lap, after sterling drives from team-mates Alex Jordan/olivant.
CTS Motorsport 2 completed the podium, from Mad Cat and the Datum Motorsport 2 Elise, with Caterhams of SPD Racing, Toby Clowes Racing and APB Racing next home. Heroes Trophy Winners for first non-relay car was Rob Boston Racing in ninth, despite Peter Mansfield spinning off at Church in closing minutes. He shared with race debutants Chris Gordon snd Scott Armstrong.
The Tivarney Caterham squad had looked set for a strong finish but a stop-go penalty put them out of the top 10.
Dan Welch had the Roddison Motorsport 1 Mazda Mazda MX-5 into the top 10 after a strong drive on Saturday evening, but after Paul Roddison/jon Halliwell had kept it in contention, exhaust maladies dropped them to 15th.
Tom Onslow-cole/josh Caygill’s Milltek Sport Toyota GT86 was an early casualty after contact, but along with the Datum Motorsport 1 Exige, they were two of only four unclassified finishers from the 43 starters.
There was a five-car class for Citroen C1s which spent much of the time in close formation, before the spoils went to BS Motorsport’s Ben Short, Matt Short and Ben Hancy.
Meyrick Cox’s team of Andrew Mckay, Matt Maxted and Gary Dunning had built a good lead, but their car had to have an engine change which left them fourth behind PT Sportscar (Charlie Martin/andrew Faulkner/justin Beadle/thomas Clynes) and Advantec (Sean Whatley/matt O’hare/chris Williams/alistair Weaver). In the Heroes Trophy the Datum Motorsport 3 Elise of Ben Brooks/lee Brooks/ Phil Grayson followed home the similar Rob Boston car, with the RKC TGM Honda Civic of Ricky Coomber, Tom Gannon and Mark Simmons third.