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After a particularly wet 24 hour race at Anglesey circuit, 2014 winners Team Sealion have emerged as the winners of the UK Club class, completing 745 laps of the twisty Welsh track in the twenty-four hour period. It wasn’t all plain sailing for Sealion (Pete Sparrow, Jon Davis, David O’Keeffe and Alec Graham) who actually broke their chassis at one point in the race, and 2nd place finishers Porky Boys really looked like favourites for a time. Porky Boys (Richard Lambert, Matt Lambert, Francis Rottenburg, Steve Jacques) also had struggles with reliability – succumbing to a broken driveshaft which was fixed after a lengthy stop in the pits, but still managed 742 laps. 3rd in the UK Class was Rent Boys Racing 2 (Nick Paton, Philip Myatt, Meyrick Cox) who also had a strong charge but needed some pit repair time late on, finishing only one lap behind Porky Boys, and 4th was Franglais Racing (Peter Rundle, Ali Topley, Laurent Dallet) – their first time as a team – who completed 739 laps.

Taking top honours in the Euro class, and the winners overall were Seventeen by Speedeuch (de Roissart/de Barbeyrac/Bonnan/Tiggeler) completing 800 laps of the race and never really bested. 2nd place was the late-entered Van Gysegen team (Beaufort/Wathelet/Jamar/Wowk/Van Gysegen) and 3rd were regular competitors CGS Racing Team (C Hooreman/S Hooreman/A Renaux).

The Mini honours were taken this time by Team Toyshed (A Slade/C Slade/S Furzeland/D Furzeland), who completed 728 laps, only 17 seconds ahead of Lyford Racing (N Lyford/J Lyford/I Manners/M Burnett) at the chequered flag! Team Misfits (N Fearnley/S Tuckley/A Tuckley/T Moseley) came home 3rd in the Mini class with a steady drive, and an honourable mention to 4th placed Slarky Malarky (S Miles/I Slark/N Slark/P Tervet) who became the only Mini team so far to change engines during a 24 hour race, which they completed in about an hour and a half! Baulk rings in the gearbox preventing them from selecting 3rd was the reason for the change.

And finally the Economy Class was won by its only entrant, Jelly Snake Racing (Ash Carter, Chris Hall, Ian Beale, Ian Arnold), who completed 659 laps and were still able to beat some of the regular Club Class cars despite having less engine power, and despite some incidents which resulted in bodywork damage.

There was a lot of action in the pits during the event as well as on the track as many of the cars suffered problems due to the wet weather, or suffered damage as a result of collisions or going off-track. The atmosphere remained very upbeat in spite of the damp however, and off-track activities included a fancy dress competition, with the proceeds going to the air ambulance charity.

Revisit the commentary from Downforce Radio which was broadcast during the event: http://www.spreaker.com/show/2cv-24h-race-radio-with-elim-citroen

Photo Gallery: click here

Results/timing sheets: TSL

 

The fourth meeting of the 2015 2CVparts.com championship saw the racers head up to Croft Circuit near Darlington. With its medium-fast corners and bumps, it’s a challenging circuit, and the local supporters are vey knowledgable and love a good race. Fortunately the 2CVs were able to provide them with 2 great sprint races and an intriguing 2 hour enduro!

Qualifying for the 1st sprint race was relatively incident free, except for a blown engine for Nigel Hollis and a non-starting car for Adam Bollons. Pete Sparrow took pole position by 1 second, with Matt Hollis flying into second place. Nick Crispin was 3rd and Kris Tovey 4th, then Philip Myatt, Caryl Wills, Richard Lambert, Mick Storey, Glenn Oswin and Simon Turner making up the top 10.

“Incident free” is a phrase that definitely could NOT be applied to the first sprint race, held on the Saturday afternoon. After the start, the race order was the same as qualifying order, with the exception of the fast starting Phil Myatt squeezing up to 4th ahead of Nick Crispin and Kris Tovey moving up to 3rd. Matt Hollis, Myatt and Sparrow battled for the lead for the first few laps, but then a misjudged overtake move on the inside of Sunny corner by Nick Crispin saw him spin Myatt around, resulting in both of their cars suffering damage and not finishing. This promoted Tovey to 2nd and Lambert to 3rd. Caryl Wills pitted at the end of lap 2, as did Adam Bollons with more engine difficulties. A lap later, Steve Walford retired the #55 car with a flipped up bonnet – somehow he’d managed to lose the front left wing which left the bonnet insecure.

At the front, Sparrow and Tovey kept each other honest, and despite Tovey taking the lead on a couple of occasions towards the end, the race finished in Sparrow’s favour. Quite a long way behind at this point was the epic scrap for 3rd place, which had been going Matt Hollis’ way until he slipped back. In his place came Richard Lambert briefly, before he also slipped back to 5th. A delighted Paul Taylor was able to pick up the pieces and steal 3rd at the end from Sammie Fritchley 4th, Lambert in 5th, and then Simon Turner in 6th after an early spin at the Complex. 7th was Richard Hollis, then Mick Storey, Mike Fox, and Nick Clarke rounding out the top 10.

Qualifying for the second sprint race took place on the Sunday morning, and with the returning David O’Keefe taking over from Pete Sparrow only lining up 10th, the top of the timesheets was claimed by Kris Tovey. Nick Crispin qualified a season-best 2nd, Phil Myatt 3rd, Tom Perry 4th and Caryl Wills 5th. Louis Tyson’s car ended up parked at the back of the circuit afjust just 2 laps with a smoking engine, and David Beatty didn’t take part in the session due to engine problems.

Come the race, Tovey held the lead on the first lap, but O’Keefe made a great start and by the end of the first lap he was in 3rd, making it up to 2nd place on lap 2. O’Keefe and Tovey would scrap for the lead for most of the race. Behind them, Tom Perry and Nick Crispin battled it out for 3rd place, with Wills remaining in 5th, Mick Storey in 6th, and Matt Lambert in 7th, recovering from a poor start. The order remained the same for quite a few laps with the leading two swapping places occasionally, but on lap 8 the order got well and truly shook up! After managing to get past Tom Perry, Nick Crispin dropped back a few places in the fight for 3rd place, and Matt Lambert was able to capitalise on the chaos and move up to 4th. However, up at the front disaster struck Kris Tovey, who missed a gearshift and over-revved the engine. As his car coasted to a halt, an absolutely flying Matt Lambert took the lead, followed closely by O’Keefe, Perry and Wills, with Crispin and Storey hanging on to their coat-tails. A lap later and Wills was forced to park up and retire his car, and Crispin was passed by Storey, who’d managed to set the fastest lap of the race on lap 4! Meanwhile at the front it was a close battle and O’Keefe used all his experience to squeeze past Lambert in the complex on the last lap and snatch the victory by just 0.102 of a second! Perry took 3rd, Storey 4th, Crispin 5th, and then Glenn Oswin 6th, Julie Walford 7th, then Alec Graham, Louis Tyson with a new engine 9th, and Richard Hollis closed out the top 10.

Qualifying for the 2 hour enduro race took place just before lunch on the Saturday. The Gadget Racing entry of Simon Clarke, Sammie Fritchley and Tom Perry took the top spot, followed by Crisis Racing 3 (Kris Tovey), Axtron Limited (Richard and Matt Lambert) in 3rd, Myatt Racing in 4th (Phil Myatt) and Crisis Too Racing (Lien Davies/Caryl Wills) 5th.

At the start of the enduro race the usual suspects were up at the front battling – Phil Myatt took an early lead, with Rosie Racing (Mick Storey/Nick Clarke) in close attendance. The Sealion car of Pete Sparrow/David O’Keeffe/James Winstanley initially shot up the order from 7th but fell back into the mid-pack after the initial charge. After a very long pitstop in the middle of the race they managed to claw back some places to finish 6th. Despite qualifying 3rd and challenging for the lead early doors, the Axtron entry was stationary in the pits for several minutes during the middle part of the race, and slipped well down the order. Crisis 3 kept up a very steady pace the whole race long and came home 2nd, Phil Myatt similarly had no issues and took the last of the podium spots, and then MIM Racing (Nick Crispin) took 4th with a steady drive, and Tete Rouge 5th after a slightly lengthy mid-race pitstop. But the winners after 2 hours of superb driving and quick pitstops were Gadget Racing! Simon Clarke, Sammie Fritchley and Tom Perry rightly very happy with their result.

Photo gallery: Click here
TSL results PDF: www.tsl-timing.com/file/?f=BARC/2015/1528212cv.pdf

Youtube videos:

Kris Tovey’s onboard – race 1:
[youtube youtubeurl=”dNQnMWe5kmI” ][/youtube]

Kris Tovey’s onboard – race 2:
[youtube youtubeurl=”vuoRf0PLeTs” ][/youtube]

Peter Rundle’s onboard from the enduro race:
[youtube youtubeurl=”iSoiZlHC4FA” ][/youtube]

Drivers’ favourite Cadwell Park was the destination for rounds 5 and 6 of the 2015 2CVPARTS.COM championship. Often described as the “Mini Nordschleife” because of its many hills and challenging corners, it’s always been a thrilling place for a 2CV race.

With the weather set very fair for the entire weekend, qualifying for race 1 got underway. There were a few spins as each driver pushed the envelope, including one spectacular one from Nick Clarke at Hall Bends, and some cars succumbed to mechanical gremlins – with Phil Myatt, Christine Savage and Simon Crook all experiencing carburettor problems. Previously this year Pete Sparrow would be topping the timesheets for qualifying, but for race 1 it would be Tom Perry starting on pole after setting a blistering time of 2:06:73. Sparrow was 2nd with 2:07.39, and the on-form Caryl “DEFINITELY NOT A WOMAN” Wills took 3rd on the grid. Mike Fox was disqualified from the results of first qualifying due to missing post-session scrutineering, after becoming stuck in 3rd gear.

Qualifying 2 was also held on the Saturday (both races being held on the Sunday), and just for a change, Pete Sparrow took over Nick Crispin’s car for this race. That didn’t stop him taking pole position though, despite later finding the car had variable toe-out on the rear. Phil Myatt was 2nd on the grid after fixing his earlier carburettor woes, and Caryl Wills was once again in 3rd. Sammie Fritchley qualified a creditable 8th place in an unfamiliar car – her first race since her large shunt at Oulton Park at the start of the season.

A club BBQ was staged on the Saturday night, and some teams took the opportunity to fettle or repair their cars. Or in the case of Adam Bollons and Ash Carter, almost completely rewire Adam’s car, and replace an engine valve. Such is the friendly spirit of the club, a number of other drivers and mechanics dived in to help!

Race 1 was held on the Sunday morning, and Matt Lambert got a great start and was able to defend the lead from the chasing pack for the initial part of the race. Tom Perry was bundled down in the pack to 3rd, and swapped places with Pete Sparrow for 2nd place for a few laps before dropping a little to 4th. Caryl Wills was back to 3rd. Also in the mix were Kris Tovey in 5th in the early stages, and the 77 car of Nick Clarke up into 6th from grid 9th.

By lap 5, Sparrow had nosed into a slender lead over Lambert, but a charging Wills was challenging for, and taking, the lead by lap 7. Wills would continue to swap places with Sparrow until the end, but it was Sparrow who took the flag first at the end of the race just just a shade over Wills. Perry recovered into 3rd, demoting Lambert to 4th. 5th was Kris Tovey, ahead of Paul Taylor, Nick Crispin, Phil Myatt (recovering well from grid 21st!), Nick Clarke in 9th, and Steve Walford rounding out the top 10.

Mick Storey completed only one lap after an early coming together with Alec Graham, and Matthew Hollis was somewhat lucky to finish after a monster spin coming down from Gooseneck chicane (See video links at the bottom), which is taken almost flat out in 4th gear!

Race 2 was held later on Sunday. With Pete Sparrow now in Nick Crispin’s car and sitting on pole, it would be interesting to see if he could keep the place. In the early part of the race the lead pack was somewhat shook up, and Kris Tovey emerged as the leader, storming to the front from grid 5th. Myatt and then Sparrow keeping Tovey honest, but by lap 4 Sparrow had edged ahead of Tovey, and the race would finish with those two in that order. Behind them Matthew Hollis was in 3rd for many laps, with Richard Lambert in 5th and Louis Tyson in 6th – up from grid 10th. Tyson was on a charge, and was up to 3rd place by lap 8, but then he went a little wide at the final corner (Barn), slid off onto the grass and into the tyre barrier! Fortunately Louis was uninjured, but the accident brought out the red flags and the race was declared at that point. Sparrow took the win in Crispin’s car, with Tovey in 2nd and Richard Lambert 3rd. 4th was Matthew Hollis, Sammie Fritchley took 5th, Mick Storey was 6th and Myatt, Alec Graham, Neil Savage (up from grid 22nd!) and Jon Davis (in Pete Sparrow’s usual mount) rounded out the top 10 places.

Apart from Louis Tyson not finishing, Simon Crook was also a retiree after a snapped accelerator pedal prevented him completing the first lap.

Maria’s pics from the weekend: click here
Full results: TSL Timing

 

 

 

Footage of Louis’ last corner crash: [youtube youtubeurl=”qiP_7beHBgM” ][/youtube]
Race one from Matthew Hollis’ car: [youtube youtubeurl=”8MgwC90x-SM” ][/youtube]
Matthew Hollis’ monster spin down the Gooseneck: [youtube youtubeurl=”wgZUWIO1jXg” ][/youtube]