Wilson’s Monaro thunders to victory
BRANDS HATCH BARC 16-17 APRIL
Andy Wilson’s raucous Holden Monaro earned a pair of Classic Thunder victories at Brands Hatch last weekend by twice chasing down faster-starting machinery. One green-flag lap around the short Indy circuit wasn’t enough to heat the ex-british GT machine’s hard tyres, despite warm Easter weather, and left polesitter Wilson slipping to fourth at the start of each race.
In the first, Colin Voyce built a sixsecond lead before slowing the pace of his Duratec-powered Ford Escort Mk1 when Paul Eaton’s Holden Commodore dropped oil. Once Wilson had dispatched Voyce at Paddock Hill Bend – he had already cleared Rod Birley (BMW E36) and Malcolm Harding (Escort Mk2) – he eased to a 3s win. Harding claimed Blue Oval Saloon Series honours but was pipped on the line for third overall by the Nissan Skyline of James Janicki, who was returning after 18 months on the sidelines.
Voyce and Harding both escaped in race two, Harding taking the lead with an inside pass at Druids before Voyce slowed a couple of laps later with an alternator issue. After thundering past Ryan Steel’s Peugeot Ew-powered Citroen Saxo,
Wilson then closed the 5s gap to Harding but could find no way through for a few laps, which allowed Janicki to close in. Wilson eventually made a move stick at Graham Hill Bend, with Janicki powering past Harding half a lap later.
Like their more modern Australian counterpart, the big American V8s of multiple BOSS champion Piers Grange
(Ford Mustang) and Alan Greenhalgh (Ford Falcon) were also given a thorough workout by smaller machinery in Pre-’66 Touring Cars. Despite each giving away more than three litres in cubic capacity, Barry Sime’s Mini and the Ford Anglia of Robyn Slater, joined initially by champion James Ibbotson’s Hillman Imp, chased hard but couldn’t engineer a way past.
Grange took his first Pre-’66 win after nudging Greenhalgh at Mclaren, but succumbed to a heavy vibration in the transmission a day later, when Greenhalgh took the honours from Sime. Slater, fourth and third, was slowed by a misfire in race two, only claiming an overall podium after Pat Kenneally’s Lotus Cortina was hit with a 15s track-limits penalty.
Pickup Trucks champion George Turiccki began his latest title defence with two wins. Fastest in both qualifying segments, Turiccki had to start each race from sixth on the partially reversed grid. He made light work of the handicap in race one, leading within a lap and a half before
gradually easing clear as Allen Cooper and Mark Willis exchanged second place.
Progress was harder in race two for Turiccki, who eventually usurped Reece Jones from the lead just after half-distance. Jones fought back tenaciously, but Turiccki repelled him to win a thrilling contest by 0.2s, while Dale Gent shadowed the pair.
In Legends, Will Gibson bounced back from a difficult opening round at Oulton Park with four wins and two further podiums yielding “the best weekend we’ve ever had”. Only multi-champions Miles Rudman and John Mickel offered any real challenge to the Surrey man’s pace and racecraft. The pair beat him in Saturday’s first heat when Gibson was drawn near the back of the grid, and again in Sunday’s final, where Mickel just held off Rudman as Gibson recovered from being tipped into a spin at Druids.
In between, Gibson scored two dominant wins – by Legends standards – and pipped Rudman in a further two, one of which Rudman had started from the pitlane after being caught up in a race-stopping shunt.
After opening his British Truck Racing title defence with a dominant victory, Ryan Smith looked set for a repeat in race two, only to lose out to Dave Jenkins on the final lap when he tangled with a backmarker at Clearways. Sunday’s three reversedgrid races brought wins for Jenkins, Stuart Oliver and Simon Reid. Smith had been in pursuit on each occasion, although he dropped to third behind 21-year-old
Bradley Smith on countback in the twicestopped race four, suggesting that his rebodied truck, now styled as a Daimler Freightliner, remains the one to beat.
While Andy Cripps jumped Dave Griffin at the start of both Pre-’93 Touring Car races, his BMW E36 M3 had no answer to Griffin’s pace in the similar Diet Cokeliveried example. Cripps also slipped behind Michael Dugdale’s version on Sunday.
Behind the BMWS, Jonathan Corker took Pre-’83 honours for the first time on Saturday in his Datsun 510 by passing the baulked Escort Mk1 of Stephen Primett into Surtees on the final lap. After Corker delayed himself by hesitating following a jumped start, Primett enjoyed a scrap with Mark Thomas in race two until gearbox oil leaking from Thomas’s Ford Capri caused him to be called in. Thomas had risen to third from the back of the grid a day earlier, having failed to set a qualifying time.
Steve Mcdermid picked up the pieces as Fergus Campbell and Will Sharpe clashed while disputing the lead of both MG Owners’ Club races. Mcdermid was also delayed when Sharpe’s attempt to round Campbell in race one ended with him in the Paddock Hill gravel. But the reigning champion picked off Jack Woodcock and then inherited victory when Steve Darbey was penalised for passing under yellows.
Contact on Cooper Straight in the sequel pitched the battling duo off at Surtees, handing Mcdermid a clear run to victory ahead of Sharpe and Campbell.
While regular pacesetter Gary Prebble laboured with a misfire on his Honda
Civic, Don Hughes (Peugeot 306) twice triumphed in Pre-’03 Touring Cars. Ross Craig’s Civic kept Hughes in sight in the opener, which Prebble led for a few laps mid-race, but was beaten by 17s in race two. Tom Robinson took the concurrent
Jaguar Challenge both times, bumping past James Ramm at Druids in the first, before enjoying an on-track battle with Craig until his tyres went off during a more commanding victory on Sunday.
Invitation class entrant Niall Bradley scored two relatively untroubled Kumho BMW successes, leading home Jason
West and Brad Sheehan in the two races.