Opinion: Stephen Lickorish

You can always rely on national motorsport to be unpredictable but some occurrences in recent weeks have been bewildering – and not in a good way

“For rules to be changed at such ridiculously short notice was nothing short of bizarre”

There can be no doubting that every now and again some very baffling things happen in national motorsport. Shocks and surprises are what make it such a fascinating strand of motorsport, but then there are certain occurrences that just leave you shaking your head. Earlier this year we had British Formula 4 driver Roman Bilinski failing to be banned, despite reaching the cut-off of 12 licence penalty points (for the second year in a row), because some of these were accrued at the same event. And in the past couple of weeks there have been some more bewildering goings on.

Ever since motorsport resumed from its long coronavirus hibernation in July, the threat has remained that events could be cancelled at short notice. But abandoning an event after already completing the qualifying sessions seems a step too far. However, that is what Autosport’s lead national story was last week as the Kirkistown season finale was called off after proceedings had already got under way, following even tougher guidance from the Northern Irish government overnight that filtered through to officials at the meeting after qualifying had begun.

This put organisers in an impossible position and their only real option was to call the meeting to a halt to avoid breaking the revised rules and facing any punishment. But, for rules to be changed at such ridiculously short notice was nothing short of bizarre. And for these to then be implemented when all the competitors, mechanics, marshals and officials were already on-site made it pointless – especially when this involved a relatively small number of people at a single-day meeting.

The conflicting restrictions from the devolved national governments have played havoc with this condensed season, as we have already discussed on these pages, and ultimately affected livelihoods. That only one circuit racing meeting has taken place in Wales all year – and that was just a tiny trial event – is crazy when, across the border, it has been a very different story. Clubs are now finalising their 2021 schedules – which is a challenging enough task this year anyway. Organisers are already having to consider whether or not the COVID-19 situation will allow a full‘normal’ schedule next year. And then whether or not the strong competitor interest generally seen this year will be sustained into 2021 to warrant the return to a traditional calendar. Factor in confusing restrictions from the devolved governments, brought in with little notice, and it is easy to see why clubs may want to consider an English-only calendar. Kirkistown may not traditionally draw many of the English clubs and series, but the two Welsh venues certainly do – they were due to host four different clubs this year, including the Historic Sports Car Club’s rare foray to Pembrey, before the pandemic struck – and the differing rules help no-one.

Another occurrence that generally helps no-one are breakaway series. Despite all the uncertainty surrounding coronavirus, there is yet another example of this in national motorsport for 2021. The newly-unveiled Ecurie Classic Racing series will cater for pretty much exactly the same cars as the popular Equipe GTS division, dividing the competitor pool. It is baffling how often this happens, and very rarely does it end well.

While ex-equipe GTS competitor John Andon has to be applauded for having the enthusiasm and confidence in the marketplace to introduce a new series at this time, it has to be questioned whether a copy of another series is the right approach to take.

“I raced with Equipe GTS from the start and, no disrespect to them, I just feel the fun has gone out of it,”says Andon, who was left frustrated when the GTS grid was sometimes shared with more powerful machines from the new Equipe Libre division. As Andon points out, these smaller-engined pre-1966 Appendix K sportscars are enormously popular at the minute, but who is to say how long that will continue to be the case and whether there will be sufficient interest to support two rival series in the future? It remains to be seen.

Then, returning to the Bilinski issue, there was a far more dangerous move than any of his earlier indiscretions in British F4 at Snetterton last weekend, when Alex Connor veered across into Casper Stevenson on the Senna Straight while battling for third. Considering the speeds involved, it was baffling that he was only penalised by being demoted one place afterwards.

Another surprise last weekend was Rory Smith winning the Formula Ford Festival. It may not have featured the quality and packed entry list of years gone by, but Smith was still not the most obvious winner pre-event when up against the likes of National champions Neil Maclennan and Ross Martin, last year’s surprise victor Jonathan Browne and regular frontrunners Matt Cowley and Chris Middlehurst.

And ultimately that unpredictability is one of the greatest features of national motorsport. There are always giant-killing stories and plenty of shocks and surprises. It is just a shame that some of those are rather more baffling, bewildering and frustrating than others.