BROCKHURST AND HUNN SHARE SILHOUETTE SPOILS
A hat-trick of second places was enough for Malcolm Blackman to secure his fourth Super Silhouettes title with a round to spare after a weekend of battling through mixed conditions at Croft.
Needing to collect just 300 points from the three races at Croft (with 220 available for a win and pole) and the two at the Brands Hatch finale, Blackman elected to take a cautious strategy to avoid a potential non-finish.
In the sunny first race, championship rival Chris Brockhurst proved too quick to catch, while in Sunday’s two encounters, peppered by intermittent showers, Danny
Hunn mastered racing on slicks in the wet to take his first series win in the opening event. Brockhurst then capitalised on a rare mistake from Blackman to take his fourth win of 2019 in the final race.
“It was fun to drive all weekend, slicks in the wet is always fun,” Blackman said. “But I knew I didn’t want to push it too hard because I didn’t need the wins, I just needed to keep banking the points and that proved to be enough to take the title.”
Despite not adding to his tally of 12 wins this season, his haul of 593 points has given him an unassailable lead of 752 with just 420 points available at the final round.
Callum Grant secured a clean sweep of pole position and a pair of race wins as he joined Classic Formula Ford for the first time this year in his Merlyn MK20A.
Familiar with the resurfaced track after a podium finish during Historic Formula Ford’s visit to North Yorkshire in August, Grant made his experience count with two dominant wins in the damp, winning both races by more than 15 seconds.
Jordan Harrison finished second in the first encounter while Ted Pearson – who drove five hours from Brands Hatch on Saturday night to compete at Croft on Sunday – finished as runner-up in the second to add to his earlier fourth-place in his Merlyn MK11A/19.
Championship leader Rick
Morris struggled in the wet in his Royale, taking a sixth and an eighth, but maintained his lead in the standings after nearest rival Tim Harvey elected to skip the trip north for logistical reasons.
Dan Gibson was only denied a trio of wins on his return to the Clubmans Sports Prototype Championship after a five-year absence by a broken rear rollbar on his Nemesis GK18. The mechanical issue allowed Peter Richings to take his third win of the season by 0.519s ahead of Gibson in the finale.
Car trouble also denied Reece Jones all three victories in the Pickup Truck Racing Championship. After a fight from fourth to win the opener, he made a remarkable charge from the back of the grid to win the second race. He was leading the third when he was shown the mechanical flag after a first-lap collision broke off his passenger door.
Jones’s retirement gave points leader George Turiccki a fifth win of the year having passed a spinning Daniel Petters – who finished third – on the run to the line.
Mathew Dawson and Rhys Lloyd took their second Croft win of the season as the three-hour Citroen C1 Challenge race was decided in their favour in the final five minutes.
The Amigo Motorsport pair were two minutes down on longtime leader Old Hat Motorsport at the point when the first-placed C1 ran out of fuel while Daniel Bruce was on his in-lap for a late splash of fuel. Slowing at Tower, Bruce tried to limp the car back to the pits for half-a-lap before finally admitting defeat at Sunny Out.