Round 4 Mallory Park - Sunday June 15th 2003

Mike Evans dominated the race, with a ‘flag’ to flag victory in beautiful sunshine on the Leicestershire circuit, featuring Edwina’s ‘Folly’ for the first time. Pete Harper and Greg Robertson picked up the class spoils.

A new chicane has been inserted, just before the Lake Esses, primarily designed for bike meetings. However, the MSA have decreed that it must also be used for a number of car meetings, so it was into the unknown, that 22 cars ventured in the midday sun.

It immediately became obvious who would dominate the day, Mike Evans posting a time of 50.98 seconds, a full 1.2 seconds clear of the other front row man, David Childs. Despite the fact that Mike was convinced he saw water coming out of the car. I know it was hot, could it have been a mirage??

Row two was much closer, Ray Harper in the second Phantom, just 0.2 secs clear of a fast improving Vaughan Thomas. Ray’s comments on the new chicane are unprintable. If golfers design golf courses, why can’t racing drivers design racetracks?

Row three saw the first of the F1300 cars, Greg Robertson 1.3 seconds clear of next in class. Alongside him was Graham Onion, who only completed 5 laps. Why? He ran out of fuel. This isn’t formula one Graham!

Gavin Childs and Anthony Denham made up row four with trouble free runs and row five comprised of the formula’s elder statesman, Reg Powell in the Pink Panther Gryphon and our resident Canadian Physicist, Richard Hypher. Who said the formula wasn’t international!

Jared Wood was on the inside of row six, with a trouble free run, apart from running out of fuel at the end of the session. Finally, in 12^th. Spot, we had the first B-Sport car and for the first time this year, it wasn’t Pete Harper, Dave Facer stealing the honours by 0.7 secs. And this with an engine throwing all of its oil into the catch tank.

Pete followed, joined on row seven, by a much improved Ian Mitchell in the IM1. The new Facer engine working well (plug, plug!).

Chris Denham and Iain Morton were on row eight. Chris peddling the Wells through a relatively trouble free session, whilst Iain found the new chicane had a negative effect on his brakes.

Steve Chaplin and Tony Harman made up row nine with trouble free runs. Phil O’Halloran spun at Edwinas on his way to a 10^th.row slot. Alongside him, Peter Carter was struggling on three cylinders.

The race was started with the Union Jack, as the lights had suffered an earlier malfunction. (Maybe this benefited all those old codgers who remember Union Jack starts – you go when the flag goes up!).

Anyway, there were no issues as the field moved cleanly away through Gerrards.

As four of the previous six races had been red flagged, mainly though incidents at Edwina’s, everyone was asked to put their brains in gear and not try to win the race at Edwina’s on the first lap. Pete Harper seemed determined to do just that. Luckily everybody following did use common sense and the field hurtled down to the hairpin without incident. Anthony Denham tried just too hard on cold tyres and ended up broadside across the track on the exit from the hairpin. Everybody avoided him and he restarted dead last.

At the end of lap one, Mike Evans had established a clear advantage from Ray Harper, being pushed hard by DC. Vaughan Thomas and Graham Onion fought hard for fourth, followed by Gavin Childs and Greg Robertson, leading Class D. Reg Powell was next up, closely followed by Richard Hyper and Pete Harper. Then Dave Facer being pushed hard by Ian Mitchell and Iain Morton.

The race only saw three retirements and two of these came on lap two. Both Darren Green and Mike Gurr stopping with terminal engine maladies.

At the front all looked serene, with Mike in obvious control. However, a tremendous dice was developing between the two Phantoms, with DC pushing Ray hard.  Graham Onion had eased into fourth ahead of Vaughan, these five cars pulling away from the rest of the field.  There was action aplenty down the field, with good dices between Greg Robertson and Gavin Childs, Iain Morton and Ian Mitchell and Phil O’Halloran and Tony Harman.

On lap eight, DC dived inside of Ray at the hairpin to take second and the fight looked like continuing to the flag. However, on lap 11, Ray suddenly pulled into the pits with yet another Diff failure elevating Graham Onion to the third podium spot.

So Mike Evans took the chequered flag, four seconds clear of DC, despite a last lap scare (another mirage Mike?) Onion took third, followed by Thomas in fourth. Greg Robertson wrapped up the F1300 class with an excellent 5^th.overall, followed by Childs junior and Richard Hypher. Reg Powell limped to the finish with no brakes (who needs them?), just ahead of Dave Facer. Dave backing off with oil problems.

Sue “The demonic perm” Facer,

        Lizzie “I’m writing as quick as I can”  Facer