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BRANDS HATCH 13 SEPT 2008

A good entry of 30 cars was received for the HSCC Indy circuit meeting, which was the largest of the day, a fact noted by the circuit commentator Brian Jones. Early morning cloud had given way to warm sunshine by the time qualifying started at 11.55 am. Only Paul Dixon, Mike Waller and Chaz Jones failed to appear, leaving 27 cars out on track.

The session seemed generally quite trouble free although Tony Martindale entertained the Paddock Bend spectators with a quick spin. Sir John Chisholm (Gemini 3A) and John Milicevic (Lotus 18) circulated in close proximity for much of the session, a foretaste of the race to come. Unsurprisingly Edwin Jowsey (Lotus 22) headed the timesheet on 53.897”, even after a late start, having failed a noise test, despite having had the same silencer on all year, but rather less expected was that Chisholm would be on the outside of row 1 with 54.803”. Row 2 comprised Andrew Hibberd (Lotus 22) and Milicevic. Tony Goodwin (Gemini 2) was fastest in Class B, almost a second clear of Crispian Besley (Elva 100) with sole Class A runner Anthony Childe-Freeman (Volpini) at the back, although ahead of David Drew who was having an outing in Jeremy Deeley’s latest acquisition, the ex Oskar Christen Cooper T52, in place of the Tojeiro originally entered as his RAM is being rebuilt.

Thanks to slick organisation and an absence of red flags in earlier races, the Formula Juniors were summoned out early for their race, the last of the day. Jowsey made a good start and led through Paddock but behind, James Claridge [Lola 5A] had a “moment” and in the ensuing melée the Moorland of Bill Grimshaw and Gemini of Tony Goodwin were damaged, the latter quite severely with a complete corner ripped off: fortunately, all without injury. Inevitably the red flag came out.   At the restart we also lost the Elva’s of Justin Fleming (clutch/no gears) and Roger Dexter [recalcitrant DKW motor].

It was announced that as the programme was ahead of schedule, happily, the restart would be over the full 20 minutes. After a relatively short delay, Chisholm got a flier of a start into the lead, but Jowsey took over on the run to Druids and Andrew Hibberd moved into second on lap 3. The gap between these two was around the 3 to 4 seconds mark until two-thirds distance when Andrew brought it down to under a second, probably due to the effects of traffic. With a large field, short circuit and wide speed differential, lapping started as early as lap 5 and at times the track got very crowded as quicker groups caught slower ones having their own battles. Fortunately there were no disasters. Anyway, over the last few of the 22 laps run, Edwin re-established his margin to win by 3 seconds.

The feature of the race for spectators was the battle for third to sixth. Initially the order was Chisholm,  Championship points leader Milicevic, then a very small gap to Claridge and Brian Mitcham (Wainer). Milicevic repeatedly ran alongside Chisholm through Clearways but the power/slippery shape of the Gemini told in the run towards the line, so the official lap chart shows the Lotus 18 ahead for only a couple of laps, but the margin was usually measured in tenths of a second. Gradually Chisholm broke clear as the race progressed so attention switched to Brian Mitcham, who had a splendid run, first taking Claridge then Milicevic to finish fourth.

As usual with FJ there were battles all down the field, including between Richard Utley, Duncan Rabagliati, and Jeremy Deeley. Duncan was giving his own recently refurbished Scorpion [500-2, with Ford motor] an outing upon his return from travels in the USA, and enjoying the extra power to head this group, and then Sue Spence [Elva 200], to the flag.

So, the final order was Jowsey, Hibberd, Chisholm, Mitcham, Milicevic, Claridge, then Pete Morton (Lightning/Envoyette) completing the unlapped cars. Class E went to Jowsey of course. Chisholm won class D from Alex Morton [Ausper T3] and Milicevic won C ahead of US visitor,  John Delane, enjoying the full variety of UK club circuits and DKW guru Tim Bishop [Sauter], Tony Martindale [Essenkay] having had a lonely spin into the kitty-litter, also at Paddock. Class B, having been significantly thinned prior to the restart, went comfortably to Crispian Besley, who was visibly quick through Clearways, from Geoff O’nion [ yellow Elva 100] and Duncan. Childe-Freeman took Class A unopposed.

Richard Page