Race Report Brands Hatch September 2008

Greetings race fans!

The Peter Best Series just gets better and better with an absolutely cracking race at Brands over the weekend!

Sadly my rain dance didn’t work this time out; despite the threat of a few drops the meeting was dry.

Practice resulted in a surprise pole position going to Blaine Neaves in car 7. He puts his success down to a rusted in gear stick which prevented him from changing down!

I thought I had qualified 4th in class only to discover that car 18 Simon Tinkler had been shown in class B so I was actually 5th. ( In fact car 18 will feature quite a bit in this report… but more of that later.)

As usual James “Iceman” Walpole (15) was pole in class A.

As we were last race I spent most of the day digesting the mammoth Brands Hatch Pit-Stop breakfast which I had devoured before the race. Highly recommended if you are a bit near the weight limit.

As I had some time to spare I decided to walk around the paddock and annoy some of the other drivers.

I was surprised to find that medical science could learn a lot from the PBIC entrants. Yes you’ve guessed it… (You may need your dictionary for this report!)…I discovered that many of the drivers were suffering from several rare phobias.

Car 18 Simon Tinkler has aqua phobia and this was exacerbated when he saw me preparing my set of “wet” tyres.

Dave Brooke (Car 11) and Blaine Neaves (car 7) have developed tonsure phobia. It is more pronounced with Dave of course who has vowed not to cut his hair until he has won the championship.

Even more bizarre is the phobia suffered by James Walpole….yes he has tricho phobia and will go to any lengths to get down to minimum weight, sadly some of the steps he suggested are unsuitable for those of a squeamish disposition and cannot be included in this report.

Myself and Mr Burchill have a fear of spinning at Paddock Hill bend but I don’t know if that can be classed as a real phobia or not.

Anyway, back to the racing. Despite a few attempts by competitors in the early races to delay matters, remarkably our turn came round slightly ahead of schedule.

The weather remained dry and we all formed up on the start line, chomping at the bit, so to speak.

Lights out and I made my traditional useless start, going nowhere spinning my wheels.  Slowly I got some traction and set off in pursuit of those who know how to start properly.

The pack was pretty tightly bunched for the first three corners and I managed to squeeze past Alan Brooke (Car 44) as we reached turn 3.

Simon Tinkler was a different matter altogether, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get past him, all the while trying to keep Alan Brooke at bay with his Jack Russell Metro nipping at my heels all the way round.

I must apologise to Simon at this juncture as I was a little heavy with the right foot around the hairpin on a couple of occasions and saved him some fuel by helping him along a little bit.  Oops!

This battle went on for the entire race with Peter Edney (car 90) resolutely keeping ahead of Simon and me.

Really excellent racing!!

I finished 4th in class and discovered that Lew Bergonzi had the measure of James Walpole on this occasion and had held on to the class A victory.

The presentation speeches later revealed a few secrets from the winners. Quietly spoken Lew Bergonzi was complimentary about his race with James. Simon Hutchinson enjoyed his race with Blaine Neaves and was grateful to still have his paintwork intact.

Blaine Neaves puts his progress down to manual labour, and Dave Brooke when quizzed by Steve Carr about his race said that Brands was not his type of track.

I having won nothing will have to keep my speech under wraps for yet another day!

Sorry if I missed anyone out, but it’s very difficult to take notes & clap at the same time.

There will be no pre-race report for Castle Combe as there is so little time and I also have to fix the bent leaf-springs on my B apparently the result of my ham-fisted start to the race at Brands.

For the race times etc. follow the link to the MST website.  Race Results

That’s all for now.

Jonesey