HARVEY GRABS TITLE LEAD AS MORRIS AND HARRISON COLLIDE
The Classic Formula Ford championship set the tone for the rest of a Thruxton meeting that was full of somewhat destructive action amid the stultifying heat. Fourteen cars started the day and only five finished.
Tim Harvey was the surprised winner of the first race in his Van Diemen RF81 after leaders Jordan Harrison (Lola T504E) and Rick Morris (Royale RF29) took each other out on the last corner. Morris and Harrison had been trading the lead for the entire race, with Harrison taking increasingly wide lines into the Club chicane in an attempt to pass Morris.
Harrison’s final attempt was just a little too wide: he clipped wheels with Morris, spun and ended up perpendicular in the path of the Royale. Morris, whose car was now sporting a broken front wishbone, turned furious doughnuts on the grass like an angry dog chasing its tail as he tried to get back on track. Unbelievably, he still finished fourth, to the delight of a whooping crowd.
Harvey had given up on a win but sailed through the stricken former leaders marooned on either side of the track, followed by Kevin Mansell’s
Crossle and 2018 Class A champion
Mark Armstrong in his Van Diemen.
Harrison’s car was too damaged to start the second race in the hands of his father Mark. The pair share the car and Harrison Sr normally drives in race two. It turned into a straight fight between Morris, who prevailed, and a confident Harvey. The lines got progressively wider up Woodham Hill again but the duo managed to rein it in just enough to avoid another disaster.
Armstrong and Mansell were involved at the beginning but Armstrong’s car gave up on him and he slid down the order. Mansell kept his place but was not quite able to keep up with the leading pair.
Only eight cars started and five finished. Mike Gardner had been hoping to make a comeback after a year on the sidelines, but his Crossle was not running properly and he never even made it to the grid the second time, having retired early on in the opener. Lotus 69-mounted veteran David Lowe was another one who did not come out for race two as ominous banging noises had been heard from his car beforehand.
Second race casualties included Steve Pearce and Will Zanelli, both in Van Diemens, who crashed into one another at the chicane, with fourth-placed Stuart Kestenbaum sneaking through unscathed.
Armstrong retired late on with a repeat of an electrical problem that had started in qualifying. Inexperienced backmarker Ben Hadfield scooped up a welcome fifth place and his first points of the season.
A fuming Morris had to concede his narrow points lead to Harvey and he will be looking to repeat his defeat of his rival at every further opportunity this season.