ANGLESEY’S RACE OF REMEMBRANCE
A motor race that pauses partway through for a remembrance service is no ordinary meeting.
But the Race of Remembrance makes no claim to be ordinary. As its organisers point out, this is a remembrance service with a race alongside it. And this, its fifth running, was especially poignant, concluding 100 years to the day since World War 1’s armistice.
The lack of convention of this Anglesey 12-hour endurance event – organised and run by armed forces charity Mission Motorsport – applies also to its eclectic machinery as well as to its willing and skilled competitors. It applied as well to this latest event’s conclusion which was amid confusion.
Even with the diverse as ever machinery, it was clear the Catherhams would set the pace in the dry . Most drivers not in Caterhams thought wet conditions their only hope of challenging them and the weather was indeed ‘typical Anglesey’. But most of the rain fell before and between the two days’ running rather than during it. Some pretenders ran at the front during the wet early going, but as the track dried the Caterhams took over.
The race result is based on an aggregate time from three race segments – that defiance of convention again. Yet, as the race entered its final minutes, as far as most were concerned the Sofa King team was on its way to a second overall Race of Remembrance win in a row – this year taking part in a single car rather than in the relay and with Russ Olivant added to 2017’s victorious trio of Caroline Everett, Jay Mccormack and James Beardwell. This was despite the Caterham 310 R being hit by an opponent during a very rainy end to Saturday’s night running and having a clutch problem late on.
But in those final minutes another Caterham squad, GPW Racing – competing as three Caterham 7s in a relay with Peter Reynolds, Geoff Price and Pete Walters – appeared ahead on the timing screens. Walters was sprinting to the line in Reynolds’s car after his own engine blew and was fighting back after the team were recovering from two stop-go penalties. He stayed ahead until the end for the overall win, two places better than the trio’s third last year.
“I’m actually quite dizzy,” Walters admitted afterwards, “I put everything into that. I didn’t know where I was, I knew we were leading the relay, I thought Russ and those guys were out in front [overall]. [I was] just trying to put in as many quality laps as I could.”
Those in his pit were no wiser on the situation.
“We had absolutely no idea [we had won],” said Reynolds.
“This is my third year and the third time I’ve been staring at it [the timing screen] having no clue how it works. The timing system bounces around all the time trying to compensate essentially when you go over a lap line or not. To be honest we’re still a bit unsure if we won.”
Everett meanwhile was sanguine in defeat.
“To start with I was like ‘why on earth did that happen?’” she reflected. “What happened was just before the remembrance service they parked us and we crossed the line, so they counted that last lap which was a very slow lap, everybody else they backtracked to the previous lap.
“It’s a little bit unfortunate but you know what, it’s a great fun event, it’s all in aid of a good charity. Pete drove brilliantly to get back up there, so well done to them, absolutely excellent.”
Words which further underline the sort of event this is. As does the very special Heroes Trophy awarded to Everett and her team as the first non-relay car.
This year’s trophy was a shell that was produced in 1917 in Ontario and, after the SS Luis was torpedoed in April 1918 with the loss of four lives, lay at the bottom of the English Channel for a century until it was retrieved earlier this year. The class win trophies were 18-pounder shells, actually fired in the conflict and recovered from battlefields in France.