The 2010 Welsh Sports & Saloon Car Championship

Pembrey 26/27 June - Dunlop Great & British Festival – BARC 20^th Anniversary

The grid keeps cool-Thanks to Rhodri for the photos

It was a blazing hot weekend with hardly a cloud in the sky set the scene for the BARC 20^th Anniversary meeting and there was a bumper 20 car entry with the return of several regulars and a sprinkling of guests lining up for race 1 practice. Heading the times was Alvin Powell who put his Mondeo on pole with a time of 61.266 which was an excellent bearing in mind that the track had been liberally sprayed with oil. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough evidence to condemn anyone (thats probably enough topical puns for now). Second fastest was the first of the new drivers Dominic Evans from Sully near Penarth. Dominic, who has done a lot of racing in BMWs and the Britcar Championship, has been in touch several times in the past about entering the Welsh Championship and finally decided to take the plunge and he put his yellow 2.3 litre Caterham CSR on the front row. Dave Krayem and his black Ginetta G50 was 3^rd with Dave & his crew finally tracing and sorting out the fuel feed problems that wrecked his chances last time out. Dave wasn’t the only one to find the oil and said "I thought I had a puncture at first!" 4^th Fastest was Rhys Lloyd, having his first Welsh Championship race of the year in his Seat Leon. 5^th and heading the Class B times was Russell Haggerty (Raw Stryker) fractionally ahead of Championship leader Neil Watts (Westfield SEiW). Martin Davies & his Sierra Sapphire should have been in 7^th place but he only managed 1 complete lap before engine problems put him out for the weekend. "I think its a burnt piston, Its usually no3 piston that goes on these, but it seems to be no2 piston this time so something must be wrong. Maybe an injector has gone down. It’s a shame as I recently did an extensive test and it ran faultlessly." Nick Jones was 8^th with Jason Davies left to uphold family honour in 9^th place. 10^th was the returning Mike Woods, who this time seemed to have shaken off the mystery brake binding problem on his Honda Civic. "We changed everything"

Mike was well clear of Ben Scrivens’ Ginetta G20. In 12^th place was Phil Bendall and his Ford Focus ST130, now in Class B. Phil has recently come back from Cyprus. "I told them to send some of their sunshine over here" Phil was parked next to the impressive with ‘Help for Heroes’ exhibition at the German end of the paddock. With lots of English flags at the Mini Championship end of the paddock the Help for Heroes lad & lasses where providing a bit of frison to Sundays Football Match between England & Germany. Just in case anyone had forgotten it! In Class A Kareem has fastest in 13^th, just ahead of Chris Morris, this time mounted on a Peugeot 205. Kareem has his car checked over prior to this event and found the engine mountings had broken. There was plenty of last minute running around to get it fixed and find a trailer after his usual one was unavailable. Guest driver Roger Dowden was providing a blast from the past in 15^th place, not only with his presence after a few years concentrating on his career in one of Swansea highest Universitys, but also by fielding a Davrian Mk6 fitted with an 1100 c.c Hillman Imp engine. For those off you who are too young to known what a Davrian or a Hillman Imp are; try Googling them. (Photo shows Roger getting some hands on experience)  Anyway the ‘Prof’ was finding new car troubles, with a car that last ran about 30 years ago. Next Guest was Chris Evans in a Vauxhall Nova ahead of Ken Rattenburg, this time out in his BTCC Ford Mondeo but mystery problems restricted Ken to only 2 laps. John O’Shea & his Eurocar Mondeo & Glynne Jones were also in trouble and unlike Ken both would be missing at the start. John with unspecific engine problems and Glynne with head gasket problems. Unfortunately this time the Alfa engine proving that 2 heads are not better than one as Glynne could not work out with of the flat 4 engines’ head gasket had gone. However Andy Williams who had replaced his usual Sierra Sapphire with a BTCC Nissan Primera for this race did not set a time after the alternator packed up but was hoping to make it out to the start!

Race 1 – 15 minutes plus 1 lap- Rolling Start

Andy Williams did make it out to the start to at least put some laps in, but as the lights changed Russell Haggerty emerged from Hatchets as the suprise leader, after Dominic left the door open on the wide outside.(Rhodri has some video of the start on https://dl.dropbox.com/u/964091/DSCF2947.MP4 ) or try this mp4

Russell managed to hold the lead for almost the full lap but Alvin was through and into the lead by the end of the lap. Russell did stay 2^nd for another lap before getting out of the way of the Class D big boys. Dom had been 3^rd on lap 1 but Rhys got by Dom and was 2^nd to Alvin on lap 3. Dom meanwhile had a half spin at Dibeni, which caused Dave Krayem to do a full spin in avoidance, the black Ginetta resumed in last place and began a long climb back up the field. Alvin in the meantime was pushing to try to build a gap to Rhys & Dom "I was pushing hard because I knew they would be coming after me" By lap 4 Dominic was back up to speed and past Rhys and began to close right up to Alvin. The gap between Alvin & Dom, stayed at a few seconds for much of the race, with Rhys some few seconds back; until the later stages when Dom made a big effort to close, setting the races fastest lap on lap 15, but Alvin held on to win by just over 1 second. Rhys was unable to keep in touch and was some 20 seconds back. Behind all the top 3 action, Russell had dropped back to Neil Watts and the pair began an entertaining dice with places being swapped on a regular basis, with Russell taking 4^th and Class B, by just over a second from Neil. Dave made a big effort to haul himself up to 6^th place. Jason Davies & Nick Jones had one of their regular dices, with Nick putting Jason under all sorts of pressure. On the line Jason took 7^th by less than half a second from Nick. However Jason later found that resisting Nick had taken too much out of his engine and sadly he joined his dad on the sidelines. Mike Woods enjoyed a race long dice with Ben Scrivens for 9^th & 10^th places, with Mike pulling away late on. Phil Bendall was 11^th with Roger Dowden 12^th. Chris Evans had a good dice with Kareem and took Class A after a race long dice whilst Andy Williams got his stuttering Nissan around in 16^th, being the last runner after Ken Rattenbury pulled off down the Hatchets escape road to record a DNF. Ken had been alternatively fast & the slow and he explained ‘I couldn’t select 6^th, which is what you need for the high speed sections. Then I couldn’t get any at all but after the race ended I was able to select a gear and drive away" However Alvin the victor seemed to have few if any troubles ‘ You should have been in the car with me! I was like an octopus!" Later it was found that his cars’ front splitter had come loose, which probably accounted for the poor handling. All in all though a excellent start to the weekend, and afterwards the awning came in useful.

Smiling Happy People - The grid keeps cool - Thanks to Rhodri for the photo

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/964091/DSCF2947.MP4

Times from http://www.tsl-timing.com/