GRASSROOTS MOTORSPORT’S BEST KEPT SECRET
Starting its third year in 2019, the Grove & Dean National Driver Rankings is something you really ought to know about. Its function is to calculate results from a range of different championships to prove, once and for all, who is the best driver in club motorsport.
While the scoring system is complicated, put simply, the best lap time in qualifying and races over the course of the weekend is given 100%. Drivers are then measured against that best time.
The format was set-up by Grove & Dean Motorsport Director Andy Hancock, an established racer himself and so dedicated to the rankings that he painstakingly works out the results by hand in what can only be described as an incredible piece of self-commitment to the idea. Of course, Grove & Dean expects to use it to convert club racers to buy insurance. But this is also a grassroots club motorsport prize system, from clubbies to clubbies.
“I raced in the [British Racing and Sports Car Club] Alfa Romeo Championship for the last five years and I can see from some of the competitors I was racing with at the time that there could be a way to compare, how does the Alfa Championship stack-up against the Mazda MX-5S for example,” asks Hancock.
“The Sunoco Challenge again caters for the higher level, but there was nothing really done for the club racer to see how we stack up.”
As it happened, it was a tight battle for the win in 2018 but British Automobile Racing Club Clubmans class champion Michelle Hayward came out on top, ahead of Jamie White (BRSCC Fiestas, right) and last year’s winner Steven Dailly (BMW Compact Cup).
Hayward (above) has won a test in a Radical for taking top of the rankings. Depending on the driver’s current circumstances and level of experience, a different car is chosen each year.
There has been a lot of attention on women in motorsport in recent months thanks to the introduction of the women-only W Series but Hancock reckons the rankings prove that club motorsport offers the perfect even playing field.
“It shows that anyone has the chance to win it,” he adds. “Everyone starts on an equal footing. Talking to people in and around club racing, she’s a very well respected driver. She’s clearly very quick and does a good job, a very worthy winner.”
It was Hayward’s first Clubmans title this year after many years of trying. But the rankings prove her speed and consistency, over 1459 other competitors.
“I got plenty of congratulations and words of encouragement when I posted on Facebook that I’d won the award,” says Hayward.
“Especially within the championship [Clubmans], the reaction there was good. I’m trying to piggyback off the back of this now and try to attract more local sponsorship and interest from the local press.
“It’s nice to come top of anything, however they work it out.”
Hayward will receive her test drive in a Radical SR3 in the coming months before kicking off her season – which is likely to be in Clubmans again although it could be in the higher-powered category.
“The prize has almost become second to it really,” Hancock adds, explaining there’s more to the rankings than a blast in contemporary machinery.
“It’s meant quite a lot for the winners in terms of obtaining sponsors for the following year. A lot of these championships don’t have TV coverage, so you need something that bit more tangible, to show to sponsors.
“The ones who do well at the top of the rankings do actually use them to try and get more sponsorship in.”
It’s free to enter, helps to attract sponsors, and offers a test in contemporary machinery. What more could you want as a grassroots competitor?