Racing reports
Team Dolan’s Ross Martin won National Formula Ford 1600’s Triple Crown title at Silverstone National after three typically dramatic races.
Kevin Mills Racing’s Michael Eastwell (Spectrum 011C) continued his successful championship return with victory from pole in race one. He lost the lead at the start to Cliff Dempsey Racing’s Jonathan Browne (Ray GR19), but reclaimed it at Brooklands on the same lap.
Eastwell’s KMR team-mate Michael Moyers, racing as a warm-up for November’s Walter Hayes Trophy, kept the pressure on and finished 0.066s short of victory. A five-way fight for third was won by the Ray of CDR’S Spike Kohlbecker.
Also racing for WHT preparation was Don Hardman Racing’s Joey Foster. His race one effort lasted three laps before a radiator cap failure sent engine temperatures in his Firman RFR17 dangerously high, leaving him last on the race two grid. The engine may have been worse off from the failure, but Foster wasn’t and climbed through the field in style to take a popular win.
Having spent some of this year recovering from surgery in between working on a FF1600 car, it was an emotional win for team boss Don Hardman, who described it as equal to winning the Fford Festival.
Foster charted only three laps again in the reversed-grid race three, which was fought out between B-M Racing’s Rory Smith and the Van Diemen of Martin.
Smith’s team-mate Tom Mcarthur started from pole but conceded the lead to Martin in a four-wide Brooklands move. He was then usurped by Smith, seconds before Mcarthur went wheels up in a race-ending collision with Browne and Foster.
The resultant safety-car period actually separated the field, with Smith and Martin galloping away. Moyers and Eastwell finished third and fourth, also well clear of fifthplaced Kohlbecker, who conceded the Triple Crown title to Martin.
Rivalling the FF1600 sprints was the four-hour Fun Cup race, where 2 Rent Dominos (Chris Hart/henry Dawes) and JPR Axiametrics (Kristian Rose/ Chris Weatherill/chris Dovell) fought hard in a race free of safety cars.
For 78 of the 201 laps, the top two were separated by less than a second, the tense on-track battle only paused by pitstops.
“It was just flat out for four hours: exhausting,” said winner Dawes.
“It’s four corners, and it’s so much harder than somewhere like Oulton
Park, because the concentration’s so much harder. You can have a whole stint and make up five seconds, and lose it in a pitstop.”
Aidan Hills took first blood in the Mazda MX-5 Supercup against Jack Harding and Luke Herbert. Fluffed braking at Becketts cost Hills a second win, with Herbert defending hard to beat Harding.
Jack Sycamore infiltrated their lead battle in race three, but Herbert prevailed again.
David May set a slick lap to take
BMW Compact Cup pole, but after some panel rubbing left an oil slick in race one. That put Tom Griffiths and Steven Dailly alone up front, and it was Griffiths who took victory. A repeat result was on the cards in race two until Dailly got his nose inside at Luffield on the final lap to prevail by 0.035s. Both drivers celebrated wildly as they crossed the line.
Lee Deegan commanded both Civic Cup races, despite starting the second from 10th place.
Similar dominance came in the OSS triple-header courtesy of Mike Jenvey in his self-developed Jenvey-gunn TS6.