The Historic Sports Car Club held their traditional season opener at Donington Park at the end of March. A busy day saw an eight race card with qualifying in the morning with racing in the afternoon. A good crowd turned out to start the season and they were treated to some good close racing with single-seaters, touring cars and sports cars all om the card.

The race action opened with Historic Touring Cars and an 18 car grid that was dominated by Lotus Cortina’s and Minis. It was an all Cortina front row with the experienced Martin Strommen on pole with Richard Belcher alongside. At the start it was Belcher into the lead chased by Ford Anglia of Bob Bullen and the Cortina of John Dunham in third as pole man Strommen slipped to fourth. The yellow flags were bought out on lap one to recover Mark Watt’s Mustang with the race re-starting on lap three as Belcher held his lead. A lap later saw Belcher retire as Nick Stagg too the lead in his Cortina having moved up from sixth. With Strommen into second the pair contested the lead before Strommen took the place on lap eight and a lead he wasn’t too loose. At the flag it was a win by 8.6 seconds from Bullen, who won class c, with Stagg third. Class D went to Roger Godfrey in his Mini Cooper while Adrian Oliver’s Hillman Imp took Class E. The first of the single-seater classes was next up with the Historic Formula Ford 2000 with 27 cars on the grid. Current Champion Andrew Park started on pole in his Reynard SF81 and got his title defence off to the best start taking the win by 13.7 seconds and never headed for the 17 laps. Behind it was Nelson Rowe second and Jason Redding third both driving Reynard SF79’s. Class B was won by Fraser Collins in 11th driving his Lola T580. The 70’s Road Sports saw another 27 car grid with a good variation in cars from the 1970’s. Taking pole was John Dickson with his Ferrari 308GTB and he was another to win from pole. Behind it was a battle for second between Will Leverett in his Lotus Europa and John Williams Porsche 911sc. At the flag it was Leverett in second but was disqualified post-race elevation Williams to second while winning class A in third was Adam Bagnall in the Jaguar E-Type. There were also class wins for Howard Payne in fifth with his Lotus Europa Class C, Peter Bowyer in an MGB Roadster taking the Invitation class finishing eighth, Jon Wagstaff in eleventh and taking Class D with is Alfa Romeo GTV and David Tomkinson in Class E taking 18th driving a Triumph Spitfire. Twenty-nine cars were on the grid for the Historic Formula Ford race and it was defending Champion Cameron Jackson who took pole. He was now driving the rare Winkelmann WDF2 rather than the Lola he drove to the Championship last season. It was a lights to flag win for Jackson finishing three seconds clear of second placed Ben Tusting and third placed Pierre Livingston both driving Merlyn Mk.20’s. While the lead battle may have been strung out by Formula Ford standards the battle for fourth was more the usual with six cars finishing within a second as Daniel Stanzl claimed fourth in an Elden Mk.8. In eighth and winning class 050 was Ted Pearson in his Merlyn Mk.11/17.

The ever popular Guards Trophy which caters for Pre-66 GT cars and Pre-69 Sports Racing cars saw 24 cars on the grid. New to the Trophy field this season is 2018 Classic Formula Ford Champion Benn Tilley, the highly rated young Lincolnshire driver now at the wheel of a Lotus 23b. Qualifying saw Charles Allison take pole in his Chevron B8 with Tilley just 0.3 seconds back in second. As the forty-minute race got underway it was Allison who took the lead as a battle soon developed behind. The TVR Griffith of Mike Gardiner held second early on challenged by Michael Hibberd’s Lotus 23b, Tilley and the Dean Forward’s Chevron B8. Lap seven saw the yellow flags out for three laps with Tilley in second behind Allison. When the race re-started Allison, Tilley and Forward stayed out as the others in the leading group made their mandatory pit-stops. Gardiner handed the TVR over to Dan Cox, Hibberd to Andrew Hibberd and Hugh Coleman handing the Chevron over to Mark Coleman. Lap thirteen saw Tilley pit and re-join the race driving solo while Forward retired his Chevron, crucially race-leader Allison, who was also driving solo, had failed to make his stop in the allotted window.  Lap 17 finally saw leader Allison make his stop and re-join in third as Cox now lead in the TVR with Peter Thompson, also in a TVR, now second. As the race entered the closing laps Allison was into second while mechanical issue had caused Tilley to drop back but was still in the top six. At the flag on lap 28 just a few seconds covered the top four as Cox took the win with Allison second on the track just ahead of Colman and Hibberd. Having missed his pit-window Allison had a 30 second penalty dropping him to seventh overall just behind sixth placed Tilley. In tenth the Invitation class was won by Andrew Wareing in his McLaren M1a, other class winners were eleventh were Class A Mel Taylor in a Lotus Elan S1, thirteenth Class C Andrew Hayden in an Austin Healey 3000, fifteenth George Douglas SRD Ginetta G16 and seventeenth SRC Nick Pancisi Elva Mk7s.

The HSCC Classic Formula 3 & URS Classic Formula Ford 2000 race saw Adrian Langridge on pole in his March 803 with Steve Maxted alongside in his Ralt RT3. The top FF2000 was Ben Stiles in fifth driving a Van Dieman RF82. From the lights it was David Thorburn who took the lead in his Ralt RT3 from Stiles and pole-man Langridge in third. The third lap saw Langridge into second and challenging Thorburn for the lead. This continued until lap ten when Thorburn retired from the race. With Langridge now leading it was Paul Smith into second with another Ralt RT3 and Nelson Rowe third and leading FF2000 with his Reynard SF79. This was the way things stayed as Langridge won by almost two seconds with Rowe taking the Formula Ford 2000 honours. With Champion Cameron Jackson missing it was Sam Wilson who took pole for the HSCC Formula Junior Championship race with his Lotus 20/22. In fact, it was Wilson who went on to take a dominant win by 30 seconds from Adrian Russell in a Lotus 22 with Steve Jones driving a Cooper T67 third. Class wins went to John ChisHolm in fourth (D2) with his Gemini Mk.3, fifth Stuart Roach (B2) Alexis Mk.2, tenth Andrew Taylor (C2) Cooper T56, thirteenth Mark Haynes (C2) Elva 200 and twenty-first Ian Rowley (A) Taraschi FJ. Closing the race action was the HSCC Historic Road Sports where Kevin Kivlochan took pole position and a win driving his Morgan Plus 8. In the opening laps it was Jonathan Rose in his Lotus Elan that held second but this place was taken on lap six by Tim Pearce also driving a Morgan Plus 8. In fourth overall John Williams won Class G in his Porsche 911, Class B Winner Colin Sharpe was in thirteenth with his Triumph TR4 and Class E winner in fifteenth Peter Aylett with his Diva GT. In all a good days racing to start the HSCC season. Further information can be found by visiting www.hscc,org.uk

Photo albums from all classes can be found here;

 https://www.facebook.com/pg/Snap-magcom-2061747147426100/photos/?tab=albums&ref=page_internal

 

Gary Malkin