SUPPORT RACES
Title favourites Jenson Brickley and Sid Smith confirmed their respective Fiesta senior and junior championship victories on the Festival support programme at Brands Hatch, but neither achieved a race victory on this decisive weekend.
Zachary Lucas was a triple winner in the senior championship, while points leaders Brickley and Alastair Kellett concluded their private battle with only one podium appearance each. Kellett finished ahead in both of the first two races, squeezing Brickley’s points advantage, but their order was reversed in the finale to ensure that Brickley added the senior title to last year’s junior triumph.
Luke Hilton was also a three-times winner on the road among the Fiesta Juniors, but an out-of-position start penalty dropped him to fourth in their second race. Smith followed championship rival Thomas Jack
Lee to the flag in each of the three races, netting a second and third respectively when Hilton won that became first and second after
Hilton was penalised.
A bumper entry of Modified Fords in multiple classes had to be split into three groups, with each group scheduled to race both the other groups. James Allen’s potent turbocharged Focus won the first and third encounters, but it was the first that caught the eye as Allen tussled with Neil Jessop’s Zakspeed Escort and Rod Birley’s familiar
WRC version. All three had turns challenging for the lead, but Allen was ahead when it mattered.
Birley faded to third with his engine cutting out.
Although afflicted by a misfire late in race two, Birley was the easy winner with Jessop missing from the grid and Allen racing later. Allen narrowly beat Steve Goldsmith’s Anglia in race three, but many eyes were on fastest man on the track Rory Jose. He finished fourth from 31st on the grid after an overnight gearbox rebuild.
A pair of Intermarque races completed the programme and had wins for Daniel Smith and Malcolm Blackman. Race one was mostly about the sibling rivalry of brothers Daniel and Lewis Smith in their Mercedes SLK clones until Lewis’s engine fell sick and he slipped to fourth behind Daniel, Blackman and spinner Steve Burrows.
Race two ran on a dry track only minutes before the Festival final had to be abandoned in a cloudburst, and this time Blackman’s Tigra came out on top after Lewis Smith failed in a bold round-the-outside move at Paddock. Brother Daniel was third and Burrows fourth again.