WESTFOLLOWSMAIDEN WINWITHANOTHER
Mark Burton’s dominance of the 750 Motor Club’s Locost championship left slim pickings for rivals, but fourtime second place finisher Martin West’s perseverance was rewarded on a gloriously warm Snetterton Saturday. Having scored his breakthrough win, he doubled-up in a cracking finale.
Fourth for the past two years, West’s 50-point haul vaulted the absent Ben Powney for 2018’s runner-up spot. In a close battle on the 200 Circuit, podium debutant David Winter finished 0.23s behind West in race one, but Martin’s day was made when buddy Paul Clark landed second in the sequel.
Burton, nine times a winner in a remarkable first full season, finished third in both super-clean races which – following chaos at Donington last month – were replenished to 32.
With four victories to Danny Hands’ one coming into Formula Vee’s deciding double-header, Craig Pollard deservedly landed his first title with the Bears GAC team. Hands, 2008’s champion, needed two big scores to stand any chance of denying him. Both wins, however, went to Graham Gant, taking his seasonal tally to six from 10 starts in the beautifully-detailed Worm’s Eye View.
Hands ran second in race one, but when his GAC jumped out of gear as Gant’s pursuers accelerated out of Murrays, and was hit by James Harridge – a torn cable leaving his Maverick brakeless at Riches – Pollard was home and dry. He finished third, behind master drafter Ian Buxton (GAC), up from eighth.
The second start was quickly aborted when a tag from Alex Jones (Bears GAC) at Riches flipped David Leniewski’s AHS Dominator, without personal injury. Gant won the shortened restart, shadowed by Peter Belsey.
Patrick Fletcher reset the Clio 182 lap record before selling leader Jack Kingsbury a dummy into ‘the Searpin’ to win the first race for a title hat-trick. Don de Graaff piled through too, and survived a last lap clatter with Kingsbury at Nelson which sent Jack back to fifth. Fletcher sat out the subsequent race which his runner-up Kingsbury led throughout.
RGB Sports 1000 went to the wire, with title favourite Billy Albone in Dave Watson’s Spire as electrical gremlins again blunted his own’s engine during Friday’s test. The defending champion started second, and was fourth behind poleman Chippy Wesemael and fellow Mittell men Danny Andrew and Paul Smith – who had an outside chance of denying Albone – when his steed faltered in Coram and he pitted.
When Smith’s exhaust detached Albone animatedly led the call to have his noisy machine black-flagged and, when Paul stopped, leapt aboard his car to finish, unclassified, with another title in his pocket.
Nobody threatened ‘Super Weasel’ Wesemael in the longer finale, in which the top four repeated, with Smith running second before retiring.
Ed Pither extended to eight his record of winning every 750 Formula race he’d finished this year in the PRS, repaired following extensive damage sustained at Cadwell Park in July. The title went elsewhere, though, dramatically. With points leader Bill Cowley suspended, and former champ Albone twice beating Peter Bove (Darvi) to second as a nonscoring invitee in his eponymous car, 2017 runner-up Mark Glover needed one sixth place to snatch the crown. But the Racekits Falcon driver had to wait, for ignition switch failure rendered him a race one non-starter. Glover finished fifth, on the tail of Bob Simpson – in his 50th anniversary season – to seal the prize.
Driving ancient bolides built by Stuart Gerrell and Tim Green, Ben Myall pipped Simon Boulter in the conventional
Historic 750 Formula sprint race after early leader Christian Pedersen’s Austin 7 Monoposto blew two spark plugs out and threw another blower belt. Simon Boulter’s Time 3B won the brilliantlyhandicapped multi-start closer.