FUELFORCE CLASSIC CLUBMANS CHAMPIONSHIP 2004
Webbed Feet Pete!
In a race held in treacherous conditions, where intermittent rain made each corner a lottery, Pete Harper came through from the back of the grid to take his first overall victory in Classic Clubmans. An equally thrilling race in B-Sport saw Dave Facer take his first win of the year, beating Barry Webb to the line by the closest of margins.
Entry
The original entry list showed just eleven cars, but any concerns over numbers were quickly dispelled, as a very respectable twenty cars turned up, in what was a support race for the 2CV twenty four hour event.
Class A is extremely healthy in 2004, in both numbers and competitiveness. 10 cars had entered, all capable of pulling off the coveted top spot. A warm welcome to Robin Booth, making his seasonal debut and it’s great to see Ray Mallock finding time in his busy schedule, to come out and play for a second time in his pristine Mark 11.
B-Sport produced 8 cars, including one debutant in Classic Clubmans. A very warm welcome to Mark Charteris, not only making his Classic Clubmans debut, but his racing debut as well! Always good to have a virgin in our formula!
Two F1300’s completed the numbers, Steve Clamp in the Drat and Richard Hyper in the RAE, the class suffering a little, due to the loss of Anthony Denham to A-Sport and Greg Robertson to Japan.
Once again it was the Phantom menace at the front. Benefitting from Friday testing (if you can call 12 laps testing!) David Childs took pole with a 1 min, 13.36, half a second clear of Ray Harper.
Row two saw the first of the Mallocks (literally!), with Mike Hickson and Ray Mallock. Both in the 1 min. 15’s, Mike had a trouble free run, but Ray was experiencing problems with leaking rear hubs having an adverse effect on rear brake performance.
Row three saw a solid performance from Gavin Childs and quite surprisingly, the first of the B-Sports. Dave Facer taking the class pole for the first time this year after some feverish work to improve the cars performance.
Barry Webb and Richard Hypher were on row four. Barry, running some new hybrid Avons, missed out on pole by just 0.1 sec., both he and Dave running consistently under the lap record. Richard was comfortably on the F1300 class pole, despite losing half of his nose after a minor indiscretion at the Bombhole.
Two more A-Sports on row five. Finlay Basson in the Myers special and Robin Booth in his Mallock. Neither suffering any problems, both just building up gradually, with times in the 1 min 19’s.
Rows six, seven and eight were entirely a B-Sport affair. Ian Mitchell recorded his best time at Snetterton, despite being caught in traffic. He was the only driver in the 1 min. 20 second bracket. Mike Gurr joined him on the row, despite a hairy spin exiting the Bombhole. Luckily nobody else got involved.
Steve Chaplin was on the inside of row seven, complaining about the lack of the right diff. The wind direction favoured the longer final drive and Steve was having to back off down the straight to save the engine. Joining him on row seven was Alan Davenport. Alan also suffered a moment at the Bombhole right at the end of practice.
Debutant Mark Charteris was on the inside of row eight, a fine performance for an absolute beginner (cue for a song?). He shared the row with Phil O’Halloran, who had a trouble free run.
Three of the last four places were filled by A-sports! Malcolm Jackson was having trouble with clutch pedal clearance and Reg Powell blew a head gasket. Steve Clamp was the second F1300, again suffering from icing problems (I told you Steve, you should have followed the Delia recipe!). The final spot belonged to Pete Harper, the brass part of his brand new rotor arm decided to detach itself without him completing a lap. This is becoming a habit Pete!
With Pete and Malcolm at the back, you could expect some fireworks on Lap one!
Race
As the cars went out on their warming up lap, a few spots began to fall, particularly at the Riches/Sear end of the circuit. Nonetheless, all twenty cars were on dry settings. Full credit to the BARC. They tried to move proceedings on swiftly, in the vain hope that the race would be run before the worst hit.
The grid was still dry and as the lights went out, the field got away cleanly. Rows four and five both making rapid progress towards the front. The field arrived at Riches, which was already greasy. Finlay Basson arrived too fast and promptly collected Robin Booth. These two lucky that everybody else took successful avoiding action.
Having avoided that, Dave Facer then locked up at an equally greasy Sear and spun down to the rear of the field, throwing away all the hard work of practice.
So, as they headed down Rivett straight for the first time, it was Ray Mallock from the second row who had the lead, followed closely by David and Ray in the Phantoms and Mike Hickson. The field seemed to arrive at Coram at the same time as the rain. Nonetheless, everybody made it round safely.
So, as they crossed the line at the end of lap one, it was still Ray Mallock, closely followed by the two Phantoms and Mike Hickson. Gavin Childs was three seconds further back in fifth, but the sensation was Pete Harper, who was up to sixth, having started from the back. Seventh was Richard Hypher, comfortably leading his class, followed closely by Barry Webb leading B Class. Ian Mitchell was next up, followed by Reg Powell. Mark Charteris had climbed to third in class, closely followed by Steve Chaplin, Phil O’Halloran and Mike Gurr. A recovering Dave Facer was next, followed by an also recovering Robin Booth. Alan Davenport was last on the road.
Malcolm Jackson had pulled off with recurring clutch problems and Steve Clamp had been stranded in the pit lane with an engine problem (if icing is such a big problem, Steve, perhaps you should try flower arranging!)
The conditions made each bend a lottery. The rain would ease at one end and get worse at the other. The cars would arrive at each bend, not knowing what to expect. Lurid slides aplenty, but creditably, everybody was keeping it on the track. The two Phantoms had forged past Ray Mallock on lap two and sadly, Ray had to call it a day on lap three, after his silencer came adrift. We also lost Mike Gurr on lap three with electrical problems.
There were three people definitely on the move. Pete Harper was up into third and closing on the Phantoms, Robin Booth was slicing back up through the field and Dave Facer was easing back up through class B.
On lap four, Mark Charteris sadly retired from his maiden race after his gearstick broke. A very strong run to that point suggests that Mark will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
As the field completed half distance, it was David Childs from Ray Harper. Pete Harper was a further four seconds back and then there was a further eight second gap to Mike Hickson, having a lonely race in fourth. A long way back in fifth was Gavin Childs, fighting with Richard Hypher. Seventh was Robin Booth and eighth was Barry Webb, but with his mirrors now full of Dave Facer.(What a awful sight!!) Ian Mitchell was third in class B, just ahead of Steve Chaplin. These two were followed by Reg Powell who had already endured a couple of spins, crowd entertainment should come second to safety Reg! Phil O’Halloran and Alan Davenport were a further twelve seconds down and Steve Clamp had joined the race, a couple of laps down.
On lap six, under pressure from brother Pete, Ray Harper lost it on the exit from Coram and gently slid into the barriers on the outside – which looked very dramatic with plumes of smoke billowing up, but was just the exhaust pipe in the foam. This left DC with a comfortable lead from Pete Harper. Also on lap six, Dave Facer dived inside of Barry Webb at Riches to take the class lead for the first time whilst further back, Steve Chaplin had found a way past Ian Mitchell to grab third in class.
On lap seven, Pete reduced the four second gap down to just half a second and on the following lap he was through into a lead he was never to lose. Barry Webb jinxed his way back past Dave coming out of the Esses and Robin Booth finally found a way past Richard Hypher and started to chase after Gavin.
As the race started drawing to a close, the conditions had eased a little, but the racing certainly hadn’t. Class A looked done and dusted, with Pete easing away at the front, but there was still much to be settled in class B. Exiting the Esses on lap nine, Barry Webb missed a gear and Dave was through. Ian Mitchell also found a way back past Steve Chaplin to retake third in class.
At the flag, it was a jubilant Pete Harper taking his first ever overall race win by four seconds. David Childs was through in second and then a huge gap to Mike Hickson, who finished third. (Mike have you considered using more ‘arm charm’ then you race might have been less lonely!) Gavin Childs just held off Robin Booth for fourth, these two followed home by Richard Hypher, having a trouble free race to easily take F1300 honours.
Dave Facer and Barry Webb came round Coram for the last time glued together. Dave held a tight inside line and Barry sensibly followed him through Russell. Barry got the power down first and started to pull alongside as they sped towards the flag. Dave had just enough grunt and took the win by the smallest of margins, the gap measured at 0.13 seconds at the flag. Ian Mitchell just held off Steve Chaplin to take the final B Class podium position, followed by Reg Powell, sixth in Class A despite a series of spins. Phil O’Halloran was fifth in Class B and Alan Davenport was sixth. Steve Clamp was the final runner home, completing enough laps to be classified and therefore taking second in the F1300 class.
Congratulation go to Alan Davenport for offering his services to the 2CV event as part of their pace car team – well Alan you dream to lead a race finally came true.
Just a final note – all credit to the Vaguely Tuned Team (Vegantune to the politically correct) who showed what sterling stuff they are made of, operating without their team leader Richard Marshall who sustained some very serious injuries after a car hit the motorbike on which he was a pillion passenger last Thursday. His chief mug, sorry mechanic, Gary “the Voices” Reynolds says he reckons he should be out of hospital on Monday 21.6.04 We all send Big Dick, and long suffering wife Jo, our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Hope
to see as many as possible at
Lots of love to you all
Sue Facer
Aka
The Demonic
Harper's
Snetterton thriller
Peter
Harper could not have picked a better way to score his first ever outright race
victory! He charged from the back of the grid to score an emotional victory in
round four of the Fuelforce Classic Clubmans Championship at Snetterton on
Saturday (19 June).
In
a thoroughly entertaining race, other class victories fell to Dave Facer
(Mallock Mk18BW) and Richard Hypher (RAE Type E1), but the real glory went to
Harper as the Classic Clubmans field formed the key support race to the annual
2CV 24-hour marathon.
It
all went badly wrong for Harper (Mallock Mk20B) in qualifying, however. A broken
rotor arm on the second lap of qualifying left him starting at the back of the
20-car field. But the double champion was determined to forge his way into
contention during the 10-lap race.
In
the early laps, the Phantom P79s of David Childs and Ray Harper battled for the
lead until Harper went off at Coram. But all the time the other Harper brother
was storming up the order and caught Childs with three laps to run. Now
realising that victory was a real possibility, Harper attacked the leader and
swept ahead on lap eight to score a quite remarkable victory, his first overall
race win in a long and successful career.
"The
car was performing superbly in the changeable track conditions," reported
Harper after taking the flag over three seconds clear of Childs. At the end of
the race an emotional Harper just could not believe what he had done.
Mike
Hickson (Mallock Mk20B), Gavin Childs (Gryphon C73/75) and Robin Booth (Mallock
MK20B) completed the top five before the class-winning Hypher. There was also
drama in class B as a mighty drive from Dave Facer (Mallock Mk18BW) following a
first lap spin put him ahead of Barry Webb (Mallock Mk16) in the closing stages.
Results
– 10 laps:
1 Peter Harper (Mallock Mk20B) 13m24.509s (87.34mph); 2 David Childs (Phantom
P79) 13m 28.079s; 3 Mike Hickson (Mallock Mk20B); 4 Gavin Childs (Gryphon
C73/75); 5 Robin Booth (Mallock Mk20B); 6 Richard Hypher (RAE Type E1); 7 Dave
Facer (Mallock Mk18BW); 8 Barry Webb (Mallock MK16); 9 Ian Mitchell (IM Mk1); 10
Steven Chaplin (Mallock Mk14). Class winners: Harper; Facer; Hypher. Fastest
lap: Harper 1m 15.974s (92.49mph).
Issued
by Paul Lawrence on behalf of the Clubmans Register
(tel 01952 510382)