CLUB100 Sprint championship - Round 8 - Buckmore Park - August
26th
Heavyweights
Introduction and Qualifying
Buckmore Park was the host for round 8 of the Sprint championship
on the bank holiday weekend, the latter fact probably accounting
for a small shortfall of regulars although the majority were on
the grid and blessed with glorious weather. Jamie Bird arrived
as the championship leader but he knew the likes of Marc Laukham,
James Child, Barney Langley, Peter Harris and John Thompson were
not that far behind him, the championship now heading to the pivotal
stage with all 6 contenders looking for valuable points.
It was John Thompson that emerged on top of the championship contenders,
securing pole with ease after a first and second in the heats,
one of those a storming drive from the back of the grid from the
old statesman of C100! Andrew Todd put in his best qualifying performance
of the season to take second, just outscoring C100 returnee Spencer
Walker who would start third. Nick Bilsborrow was next up on grid
4 ahead of Barney Langley who would surely have been on the front
row but for an off in heat 1. Marc Laukham was struggling a bit
at times in the heat but did enough for grid 6 ahead of James Childe
and Steve Jennings. Jon Cooper was an impressive 9th ahead of the
equally impressive Chris Wright with Darren Plumber and Rudolf
Tison resuming their battle from the Round 7 B final together on
row 6! Steve Waghorn had to be content with 20th whilst a few notably
performances came from Richard Masterton (14th), Ben Whibley (15th)
and Ian McMillan (17th) whilst Mike Boswell recovered from a swollen
ankle after getting knocked over early in the day to take up his
place in the A final on grid 19.
The B final front row consistent of Peter Kay and Spencer Fortag,
both of whom had obviously hoped for a lot better but were pretty
much certain to qualify for the A final. Colin Grover and championship
contender Pete Harris were together on row 2, the latter also looking
to put some miserable heats behind him and get through to the A
final. Kevin Turp and Mark Burrell shared row 3 with Matt Rigby
and Cameron Saunders lining up on row 4 ahead of James Taylor (who
would have easily made the A final had he not been black flagged
for unknowingly restarting himself in his second heat!) and Billy
Taylor who after some excellent A final results was just all over
the place this time out. However, this was nothing compared to
championship leader Jamie Bird who was back on grid 13 after some
woeful performances in the heats (his words on this occasion, not
mine!) and he knew with a few notably drivers ahead of him that
he would have his work cut out to progress to the A final. A number
of newcomers were a little further back in the form of Reece Brooks,
Andre Tautz and Nikolaos Mantikas whilst Steve Harris had survived
a nasty looking roll on the slow down laps of his last heat to
take up position on grid 23.
B Final
To those in the know, the top 4 was pretty much a forgone conclusion
even before the race started failing any major incidents and sure
enough three of those headed the pack at the completion of lap
one with polesitter Peter Kay leading ahead of the fast starting
Peter Harris, Spencer Fortag and Colin Grover whilst championship
leader Jamie Bird still had a lot of work to do although he was
already up 4 places to 9th behind Mark Burrell, Cameron Saunders,
James and Billy Taylor (not related by the way!).
With Kay edging away up front, Fortag and Harris fought over second
place as they pulled away from Grover in 4th whilst Bird fought
his way up to 5th by passing one driver a lap until he was up to
5th by lap 6 with just Burrell between himself and a place in the
A final. It took him a further lap to complete the task, moving
into 4th on lap 7 before charging off after the top 3 which were
still headed by Kay some 1.5 seconds ahead of Fortag who in turn
had now pulled clear of Harris in third. Burrell continued to circulate
in 5th ahead of the James Taylor, Billy Taylor whist Stuart Robbins
was fighting his way up into the top 10 and would eventually pass
Billy Taylor before the race was complete.
At the flag it was an easy lights to flag win for Kay with fastest
lap to boot ahead of Fortag, Harris and Bird – these being the
fairly obvious top 4 before the race had even started!! Burrell
was a further 2 seconds further back in 5th ahead of James Taylor,
Robbins (good drive), James White, Billy Taylor and Grover who
had dropped down after a promising couple of opening laps.
Star Drive - Stuart Robbins - charged through
from grid 20 up to 7th.
A Final
Once again it was the inside line that got the run into turn one
with John Thompson heading Spencer Walker and Barney Langley whilst
Andy Todd from grid 2 found himself shuffled down to 4th ahead
of Nick Bilsborrow and Marc Laukham. Over the course of the first
few laps, Thompson managed to maintain a slender advantage over
Walker and Langley who continued to squabble over second place
allowing Todd to close in before the latter moved into third on
lap 4. Bilsborrow’s early challenge faded as he dropped to 8th
on lap 2 thus elevating Laukham to 5th ahead of Steve Jennings
and James Childe although the latter would wrestle 6th away by
the end of lap 4.
By lap 5, Thompson still held a slight advantage over Walker although
the latter was about to slide back down the order to 6th as Laukham
moved through into second place as the battle for second place
really hotted up. All the in-fighting had allowed Thompson to pull
out a 1.5 second advantage but once through into second Laukham
caught the leader very rapidly and by the start of lap 9 he was
glued to Thompson’s bumper. Todd remained in the chase in third
ahead of Childe and Langley, the latter falling away from the lead
battle now with Bilsborrow and Jennings now swapping places seemingly
every lap as they battled over 8th.
On lap 10, Laukham got a good run up to Garda and dived inside
the helpless Thompson for the lead but the latter was not about
to give up his hard fought lead and put a great move on the new
leader into turn one at the start of lap 11, catching Laukham a
little by surprise to lead once again. Todd and Childe were now
in contention as well so Laukham now had to attack and defend at
the same time although Thompson was a little more defensive and
knew where he now needed to be careful! Thompson defended solidly
over the course of the final lap to deny Laukham back to back wins
and in doing so claimed his maiden C100 victory much to the delight
of the drivers, staff and spectators, the second very popular winner
in one day. Laukham was pleased with 127 points for second whilst
Childe moved past Todd on the penultimate lap for third. Langley
closed back in at the end but could do no better than 5th ahead
of Walker, the charging Spencer Fortag (up from grid 24!), Jennings,
Bilsborrow and Nick Portlock.
Star Drive - Spencer Fortag - a cracking
drive from the back of the grid all the way to 7th place.
