OSS attracts low numbers but Smith and Sherrington keep it interesting at front

It only takes two cars to have a race. That adage was used several times during the Castle Combe meeting and perhaps was most apt for the OSS races where only nine cars made the trip to Wiltshire after a six-year absence.

It was a far cry from the 42 that had taken part in the opening round of the championship on the Silverstone GP layout back in May, or even the 17 and 15 competitors that had made it to the second and third rounds respectively.

But despite the lack of cars, each of the three races provided an interesting battle at the front of the field between the Radical PR6 of Josh Smith and MCR Sport of Patrick Sherrington.

Smith leads the standings and was OSS champion back in 2014 and ’16, as well as being the Castle Combe Special GT champion two years ago. He’s been the leader of motorsport engineering at Bridgewater & Taunton College for almost a decade and the Radical is run by the students there.

“As a team we work very hard and our level of preparation is very high,” says Smith, whose dad Darcy was also competing in the OSS series at Combe.

“Seven of them [students] were picked up by Strakka Racing for the Spa 24 Hours and two graduates are actually employed by them.

“It [OSS] works for us, it’s five or six weekends [a year] and it’s a lot of track time.

“We enjoy racing with him [Sherrington] as he’s firm but fair. There are always people, not necessarily in OSS, who can be overaggressive and you get away with it in tin-tops but not these cars.”

Sherrington on the other hand is a former Formula Vee competitor, with Sports 2000 titles to his name in 2014 and ’15 and a runner-up spot in 2016. Since last year he, along with Clive Hayes, have developed the MCR Sport which “is an evolution of the Sports 2000 car”.

“Since we swapped to the 1.6-litre turbo engine last year we’ve had a few heating problems but we’re nearly there with it,” says Sherrington.

“Last year was about getting the mapping right and I’ve got used to the car.”

The MCR was originally designed by Hayes and Brazilian Luiz Fernando Cruz with it being “the most successful Sports 2000 car and half the grid are MCRS”, according to Sherrington.

With Smith’s Radical quicker through the twisty section of the Combe track and Sherrington’s MCR able to stretch its legs down the straight, it meant the races played out like a chess match.

Smith led from pole in the opener and claimed the championship outright lap record – 1m02.973s – as he and Sherrington lapped the entire field.

Wet conditions played to the strengths of the Radical in Sunday’s first race, although the spinning Norman Lackford through Camp almost put a halt to Smith’s charge.

In race three, Sherrington got the jump at the rolling start and led for the first three laps before Smith went by at Quarry and set another lap record – 1m02.721s.