KESTENBAUM SNATCHES CLASS A TITLE AT LAST OPPORTUNITY

My ‘three line whip’ request had pretty much done what was necessary to attract a decent grid at the final double header meeting of the 2008 Championship – my calculations meant that we needed 23 cars to hit an average of 17 cars for the season – as it happened, we made 22, and BARC have already informed me that the Championship is safe for 2009 – no yellow card, which is obviously very good news. Having said that, several drivers will be absent next season, so we cannot become complacent – our grid sizes in early 2009 will be important in deciding whether we can continue into 2010 still clear of danger, so the work will continue to attract fresh interest in the Championship over the off season.

Encouragingly, we had several drivers coming out to play for the first time this season – Roger Newman in his immaculate RF80 (surely one of the best prepared cars in the Championship, along with Andy Powell’s Pink Panther ?), Peter Lavender in his recently acquired (and expensive by the look of it) Merlyn, Andrew Bartosiak in his Royale (with a new fuel tank following his fuel feed dramas last season) and last but by no means least Thomas Hollingworth, out for his first ever run in the ex Lavender Van Diemen RF79. Thomas was a late entry, having only introduced himself at Cadwell a fortnight earlier, so it was a surprise and a pleasure to welcome him to the Championship this season.

It was Tom Hollingworth's first ever race in the ex Peter Lavendar RF79		Lavendar's new wheels drew many an admiring glance

Simon Davey was out for the final time in his RF81, which was being sold after the Saturday race to a Frenchman. This meant that he would miss the final round on Sunday. With Paul Walton absent this weekend, it meant that Stuart Kestenbaum had an opportunity to take the Class A Championship at the final hurdle if all went his way.

With Class B spoils already having been decided at Cadwell (in Jon Davis’ favour), the other main point of interest was between Ian McMillan and James Gowens, slogging it out to decide who would become the Novice Champion.

Qualifying : The weather forecast had not looked promising, and for those who used the Friday test day, it was wet. Saturday morning, however, was dry, although it was far from pleasant – it was cold and windy.

Andy Powell was immediately on the pace, and set pole on his fifth timed lap, on a 1 min 5.5. Stuart knew what was required of him, and took the other front row slot on his 11^th lap only a tenth adrift. Steve Pearce continued his impressive form (if you ignore Cadwell) with 3^rd, and Jon Davis was the only other man in the 5s, taking the Class B pole. Simon Davey, clearly aware that the car needed to remain in one piece, was down in 5^th, albeit only half a second adrift, and joining him on row 3 was young Ollie Robinson, eager to end the season on a high after his two poor showings to date this year. Row 4 was occupied by Dave Lowe and Roger, with Peter and Ian behind in 9^th and 10^th, Ian taking the Novice pole.

Race 1 : Amazingly enough, the day continued to remain dry, although the wind picked up. Most drivers had taken refuge in the pit garages, so were able to make the most of Silverstone’s facilities (which would continue all weekend).

Jon took the lead on the opening lap, until Stuart passed him on lap 3, to keep a lead that would remain until the flag. Andy Powell lost out slightly, dropping from 2^nd to 5^th early on. But the battle up front was typical CFF1600 – by the end of lap 5, only 5 seconds separated the first 11 cars. Ben Hopton was doing a brilliant job keeping on the tail of this train, but it all went bang on lap 10 when his engine let go. A most unfortunate end to his season, during arguably his most competitive race yet, but nevertheless, he and his family continued to enjoy the remainder of the weekend in good humour – something that some of the other drivers could learn from... Well done Ben (and dad Andrew) for your efforts this season – we look forward to seeing you back fresh for another go next year.

Within the top ten, Roger and Peter were having a splendid battle for 7^th, swapping places lap after lap. Roger’s problem was that the Merlyn’s hole in the air was nowhere near as big as his own, and he had difficulty gaining a tow. It would end with the Merlyn in front by all of one tenth of a second.

Stuart took the lead on lap 3, and held on to it until the flag, albeit with Andy P snapping at his gearbox throughout. In only his second FF1600 outing this season (interspersed with FF2000 action), this was a very good effort from the Woking driver. The other players in this battle up front included Ollie, Simon, Steve Pearce, Dave Lowe, Andrew Smith and the Roger/Peter battle.

Jon departed the top 10 with a visit into the gravel trap at Brooklands on lap 9, which he managed to drive out of, although his hopes of victory were dashed.

The next gaggle of cars saw a good dice amongst the novices of Ian, James and Alan Fincham, the latter two having infinitely better days than at Cadwell two weeks earlier. Also involved in this gaggle were Matt Taylerson and Jeff Palmer. This might well be Jeff’s last race with us (he will be moving to France next year), and his race today proved to be one of his better ones (the same could not be said of his Sunday race however !)

So – at the flag, it was Stuart from Andy, with Ollie passing Simon for third on the final lap, Steve , then a pleased Dave (to take his first Class B victory of the season), then Peter, Roger, Andrew Smith, and Ian taking the novice win and becoming the Novice Champion.

Thomas finished his first ever motor race, and even managed to have a race with Jonathan Greenwood, which he was pretty chuffed about, even though he lost out.

Following the mid afternoon race, the rain hit Silverstone – thankfully most cars were happily sitting in the garages. The club AGM was even held in the garage, as nobody could be bothered to brave the foul weather and walk the half a mile to the room at race control…..It was probably a good thing to, as the barbeque was fired up inside the garage during the meeting, which had the desired effect of bringing it to an abrupt close, as people rushed to the doors gasping for oxygen….We should try that more often !

Race 2 : It didn’t stop raining from Saturday night through to Sunday afternoon. I figured the best place to sleep was in the middle of the pit garage – I chose wisely, as I awoke to discover a small river forming just a few feet from my sleeping bag. I was even happier when I saw that the interior of my car (where I had initially planned to spend the night – this being a zero budget weekend !) was soaking wet – as one of the sun roof drains had got blocked, and water was literally pouring in through the roof….so much for a 14 year old beemer.

The weather was not improving – Luke McShane – on marshalling duty as always – said that there was 2 inches of standing water at Brooklands. The FF2000s second qualifying was abandoned, and there were mutterings that, unless things improved soon, we would all be packing up and heading home. But the forecast proved correct – by lunchtime, the rain had stopped, and race control announced a revised schedule for the afternoon. We were due out at 3.30pm – hopefully the saloons and Formula Renaults would help disperse the water.

In fact, with the wind, the track cleared of water fairly quickly. By 3.30pm – with the afternoon running to timetable – 18 cars tip-toed onto the grid (Dave Lowe even managing a spin before he reached the grid !)

The grid was formed from Saturday’s qualifying session, as per our usual Double Header rules, it being the second quickest qualifying time. Absent today were Simon Davey – his car bizarrely having been sold on the Saturday afternoon, which would give Stuart a chance of snatching the Class A title if he could win today’s race – Andy Powell (who had only elected to drive the once this weekend), poor Ben Hopton, out with broken engine, and Paul Simms, for reasons unknown.

Stuart was on pole, with Steve alongside. Jon was all alone on row 2, with Ollie and Dave on row 3, Roger and Peter ready to do battle again on row 4, Ian again heading the novices, with Jeff alongside, Andrew on his own on row 6, then James and Matt on 7, yours truly and Alan on 8, Jonathan Greenwood on 9, Andrew Bartosiak and Thomas on 10, and Mike Saunders bringing up the rear.

The circuit was free of any spray thankfully, but was still very slippery, especially through Brooklands and Luffield. Apparently the ‘quick’ line through these corners was on the outside (something I never figured out, and presumably neither did most others, which would explain the massive 3 second gap between Stuart and Jon and virtually everyone else !) As Peter said afterwards, you could have got out and pushed it quicker round Luffield it felt so slow.

At the lights, everyone got away OK, although I must say that I almost smacked it straight into the pitwall, as I gave it far too much welly in 2^nd. Luckily for me, and those following, I regained control, but it allowed Jonathan G to get passed me on the run down to Copse.

Andrew was the first spinner of the afternoon, at Becketts, and resumed at the rear. Into Luffield for the first time, Jeff ran out of talent and spun, taking James off into the barriers to end his season with another corner missing. James tagged Dave in the process, he too spinning out, although he missed anything solid, and was able to continue.

First lap chaos at Luffield		Matt Taylerson's prayers in the assembly area were rewarded with an excellent 4th overall, 3rd in class B

Up front, Stuart knew what needed to be done. Apart from Jon, he was the only man in the 1 min 17s, and he stormed off to take the win by one of the biggest margins in recent memory. At the time, it was thought that he was in need of the fastest lap in order to clinch the Championship, but in fact he didn’t, even though he did get the quickest Class A lap by almost one second. Under immense pressure, Stuart knew that he had to win it (and with fastest lap – which he didn’t need, but he didn’t know that at the time) – so quite an incredible drive from the vastly experienced Londoner in the circumstances, never putting a foot wrong.

Jon took the Class B win with second overall, despite a scary moment when he spun through Woodcote (‘I though I could take it flat’) on lap 3. Amazingly (and amusingly), he was credited with 12^th place in the initial results, as his transponder was not picked up by the timing beam when he went over the start/finish line backwards, which meant he was shown as being a lap down ! A quick visit to race control enabled a revised result to be published, which put the smile back on Jon’s face…

Peter was highly impressed to take third overall, and second in Class B (some of us still remember that shock win in the wet Peter all those years ago at Combe..), with Matt equally so in 4^th, to take home a trophy. Its not often these days that we see 3 Class B cars in the top 4…

Roger took second in Class A, 5^th overall, with a tidy drive keeping out of trouble, although no repeat of his battle with Peter the previous day. Steve was up to second at one point, but spun back to 6^th on lap 4, which is where he stayed.  Andrew recovered from his first lap spin to take 7^th overall/4^th in Class, passing myself and Ian in the final lap.

Ian took another Novice win, with me behind, having spun myself at Beckets mid race (for the third time during the weekend..). Atleast I was reasonably pleased to be a bit closer to the pace for once.

I was in fact the last unlapped runner, probably being only a second away from being lapped myself. Dave recovered from his first lap excursion to finish in 10^th, with Alan, Andrew Bartosiak, Jeff, Thomas and Michael rounding out the finishers. Jeff spun again at Copse later in the race (almost taking Roger out this time !).

Ollie was going well in second place right up until lap 10, when he blew it, running too wide and Brooklands, and beaching it in the gravel. Game over after a strong weekend, and that was despite running on 3 year old tyres….

So, another season comes to an end, seeing a different driver winning all 3 major trophies. All in all, a good season, especially with the Class A battle going down to the wire. My thanks to all the drivers and mechanics who have made it an enjoyable and (at most times) a humorous twelve weekends in 2008. Good luck to those who race back at Silverstone at the Walter Hayes Trophy in a few weekends time, and I look forward to seeing as many of you all as possible at our annual Dinner Dance on Saturday 21^st February 2009, which will be held at the Yew Lodge Hotel in Kegworth, near Donnington -  details to follow.

Over and out.

ADH

Final ramblings from the oldest novice in town:

What a fantastic weekend at Silverstone, regardless of the strange layout of the national circuit, as a 1^st time visitor I really liked it [even in the wet]. But for me the best bit was seeing all the fantastic cars on the grid – respect is due to you all for the work and money you must have invested, they looked like jewels, fantastic – but just actually being there was also amazing. Up front and racing at the home of British motorsport and wobbling around on the same tarmac as John Surtees, Sterling Moss, Fangio, Graham and Damon Hill, Ayerton Senna and Andrew Smith was a real buzz. I also thought the marshalls and general organisation was outstanding. They really made a big effort to keep things safe and on time on Sunday and that was a real challenge.

The qualifying for me went quite well and for once it was nice having more drivers behind me on the grid than in front. However, and in spite of all my planning I managed to hole a radiator in qualifying and make the two worst starts of the year. Seeing, in both races, loads of cars stroll past me before the 1^st corner as I grappled to get any grip the ACB10’s are really not the way forward, literally, in the wet. So much for qualifying! I really enjoyed the racing and general tussle with 3 or 4 drivers in race 1 and eventually managed to put a couple of consistent laps together to pull a small gap and leave them to swop paint for the last few laps and 10^th place matched my qualifying position.

Race two had a similar feel but the wet conditions added no end of amusing vignettes as I wobbled around in 8^th place just trying to stay on the track. I was genuinely upset to see James Gowan in the dirt on lap one as watching James on form sliding and weaving his car is great fun and I missed that for the rest of the race. The scariest element was watching Jon Davies pirouette onto the start finish straight – very graceful Jon. But the funniest one was watching an on form Andy Hodson gain a titanic spurt of pace on lap 5 or 6 passing me out of Copse. It was good to see Andy on good race pace but I sort of thought this could be one of those moments that you know may not last - well I wanted to stay close enough to catch the moment. To order, on the next lap as Andy went flying into the Becketts right hander it seemed fairly clear to me that Andy would not be coming out of it before seeing everything one more time doing a 360 degree fast forward. Well controlled Andy! I have to say that I was laughing so much for the next two laps that I had to lift up my visor to dry off the tears. In the [process Andy Smith caught me up so I let him pass on the last lap as I know how keen Andy is in these situations [only kidding Andy I actually tried and failed to match your pace].

It was a bit of a weird emotional type of weekend as well – partly having to sleep in the back of the Kangoo van again, that is a character building thing in its own right, and partly due to there being a bit of pressure on me to put the novice title to bed. I felt that I had been steadily getting better all year but really did not feel in the hunt for the title until Cadwell, then it dawned on me that I could win it. But I have to say that the competition was fantastic all year and if not for some really bad luck and typical new driver sort of incidents by James and Ben it would have been very much closer and possibly a different outcome. James’s three wins and Bens win and three fastest race laps prove the potential in these two and all the other newcomers.

I had my own ups and down in the year with a blown engine and that constant ‘everything feels new every time you sit in the car feeling’ but managed to keep it on the tarmac most of the time and be consistent. I also want to take this opportunity to bid you all farewell. I will be advertising my car for sale over the next few weeks - 07771 923 072 if any one is interested. Its not that I do not love the racing, the drivers and the atmosphere, its just that all I wanted to do was have a go in this class and to race at the circuits we went to this year. So I achieved what I wanted and did far better than I hoped with the novice title and 5^th in class ‘A’ overall. So a few good results and a fantastic time what more can you ask for? I am sort of missing it already [I must be still in that euphoric state forged by too much adrenaline and beer] but I know it’s the right call. I will be moving onto new pastures and adventures. But I will be coming to watch, help out where I can and may well have a run out in a lease car if things work out ok.

I have to say a big thanks to a few people. Steve Pearce [I know we all think of Steve as a bit of a lad but Steve was the 1^st to say if you need anything let me know – having said that I think I ended up lending Steve more stuff than anyone else – only kidding Steve and thanks for the gear ratios you loaned me] the help and support in this club is superb, from Paul Walton’s and Andy Smith’s advice on race craft to Robins unending and willing expertise applied to almost any situation or problem [even if its rugby league or the state of the worlds economy] thanks to Andy Hodson for his on-going and always objective support to the support and help from Dave Malpas. I have to say that Dave is always very keen to give you good advice, but every now and then it is a little misguided [sorry Dave but I have to tell everyone about the time you advised me to increase the oil pressure by unscrewing the grub screw [this actually lowers it – even after you had kindly double checked the procedure with one of the FF2000 lads]. Thanks to Mr Baxter for building me a really strong engine after the Brands Hatch explosion and finally thanks to all the other novice drivers this year who made the mini championship so much fun.

So take care everyone, have a great Christmas and I hope to see you all at the dinner dance in February – I have sent off my penguin suite for cleaning and I am already working on the quiz.

Ian McMillan