Champion Stoten gives best to Gibbins
Reigning Sports 2000 champion Tom Stoten came to Brands Hatch on the back of five straight victories in his Gunn TS11, and remains on course for another title despite being beaten by Michael Gibbins’s MCR.
A poor start left Stoten trying to catch the runaway Gibbins, who eased his pace and finished narrowly ahead after 19 laps of the long circuit. Dominic Lesniewski lost a distant third place when he stopped with a broken clutch after coming under pressure from David Houghton and Joshua Law.
Jeremy Timms looked a likely double Monoposto winner after qualifying, but almost gave the first race to Ben Cater when he slowed to avoid lapping backmarkers on the final corner. Second time out, a terrible start left Timms playing catch-up and his car then stuck in fourth gear and finished third. Cater won, with Alex Fores second after taking third in race one. Richard Gittings won both Mono 1000/1800/1600 races. He was chased by Tom Rawlings and Mark Reade in race one and by Dean Warren and Craig Hurran in race two. Reade was fourth in this one from a pitroad start.
After 45 minutes of racing and compulsory pitstops, the top four Bernie’s V8s finished in the same order as their grid positions. They were also the only cars on the lead lap. Steve Ough’s Crossle 9S won by more than a minute from Gavin Buckley’s similar car. Russell Mccarthy brought his MGB V8 home third, wary of driving too hard to stay in front of Paul Cook’s BMW with MG championship points at stake in this race.
Incidents at an oily Clark Curve brought an early chequered flag to the Swinging Sixties race. Winner Ray Barrow, also celebrating his birthday, won’t complain about that, his Camaro finishing ahead of Geoff Taylor’s TVR and Owen and Nigel Reubens’ TVR. After leading, the Reuben car suffered from a 60-second pitstop success penalty for previous wins.
Eight races on Saturday opened a mixed bag programme which switched to the
Indy loop on Sunday for the third running of the popular Festival Italia.
Excessive wheelspin dropped Nigel Jenkins from the front row to fifth in the first Ferrari Classic race. He fought back to challenge for the lead, which he took when Tristan Simpson strayed wide at Graham Hill Bend. The duelling Tim Mogridge and Gary Culver dumped Simpson back two more places in traffic. Jenkins nailed the start at the second attempt but had to work hard to fend off Lee Moulden for many laps. Both cars sounded off-colour by the end, but stayed ahead of Simpson and Culver while the smoking Mogridge car retired.
The 2018 Ferrari Club series races were dominated by the 458s of Gary Culver and Witt Gamski, who took a victory each. Gamski, in his first race for a year, lost the lead in race one when boxed in while lapping backmarkers.
The best feature of two Alfa Romeo races was a seven-car Twin Spark class battle in race two which had championship leader Tom Hill in the thick of things after retiring from race one with a failed crankshaft sensor. Chris Snowdon won both races outright and Andrew Fulcher was a double Twin Spark winner.