Britcar Night Race, Brands Hatch Indy – Report
A Win For Sean McInerney, And New Champions Crowned

Sean McInerney gave a convincing performance - though he won by just a narrow margin - in Saturday evening’s 91-minute race, which also saw the 2008 champions declared. The Britcar GT Cup fell to Rod Barrett, Jan Persson and Jay Shepherd in the Neil Garner Racing Porsche 996, while Mike Wilds, Ian Lawson, and Anthony Wilds, in the Torquespeed-run BMW 318i, scooped the Britcar Production Cup; Ian and Mike also claiming the overall Drivers Championship too.

Friday testing had claimed some casualties. An embarrassed Keith Robinson had managed to extricate the MJC Ferrari 360 from the Clearways gravel after a spin, but the same corner claimed more significant damage to Paul Drayson’s Barwell Aston Martin Vantage and Zubin Randeria’s Richard Chamberlain Porsche 935 Replica. The Barwell team prepared themselves for an all-nighter; “we’ve got spares for everything and there’s nothing here that we can’t fix”, but the damage to the Porsche’s unique handmade componentry was too extensive. Not to be beaten though, the Chimptune team returned to base to collect the little road-registered Lotus Elise, star of the 24-hours.

Qualifying was held in the Saturday afternoon dusk, immediately before the race, and Sean McInerney, who was to tackle the race alone in the Eclipse Mosler, topped the time sheets at 46.272, nearly half a second quicker than the similar Topcats machine of  Andrew Beaumont and Henry Taylor.  ALMS returnees Paul Drayson and Jonny Cocker headed the second row in the immaculately repaired Barwell Aston, with the Witt Gamski/Keith Robinson Ferrari 360 alongside. The M-Tech team have steadily improved as they got to grips with the big league this season, and their lone Ferrari 430, in the hands of Duncan Cameron and team manager Mike Edmunds, qualified fifth, with the top-string Topcats Marcos Mantis of Mick Mercer and Richard Fores alongside them on the third row. Endurance veteran Almo Coppelli, in the Ferrari 430 he shares with owner Peer Slipsager, was seventh, ahead of the leading Class 2 car, the invitation-entry FSR Porsche 997 of Malcolm Stott and Steve Colbert. 

Heading the fifth row was the first of the “legitimate” Class 2 runners, the Topcats Marcos Mantis of Jon Harrison and Neil Huggins, replete with new Corvette engine, throwing a large spanner in the championship works. Lajos Varga completed the Class 1 runners in the RPM Viper (the 2007 BGT Championship winning car), shared with Ian Flux, who got a late call-up to replace Richard Martin. Championship contenders Barrett, Persson and Shepherd were next up, with a flexible driver rotation planned for the race, dependant on weather conditions; although, with rain unlikely, it was fairly certain that Persson would relinquish his seat in the Porsche 996.  

Newly-crowned 2008 PS1 champions Kevin Clarke and Wayne Gibson needed no invitation to join the Britcar fray, but nevertheless were there on a non-points scoring basis, the Class 3 BMW E46 posting 12th best time, whilst the seventh row featured Spanish GT regulars Manuel Cintrano and Javier Morcillo, with a toe-in-the-water exercise in an ex-Chad Porsche 996 run by Neil Garner. Alongside them was Keith Gent’s BMW E36, with Michael Caine sharing the driving duties, and, heading the eighth row, and perhaps a bit further back than intended, were championship aspirants Henry Firman and Steve Bell in the Jaz Motorsport Porsche 911. The Miles Masarati/Chris Wright Porsche 996 was alongside the Jaz car, but, whilst laying in a healthy championship position going in to the race, the dropped score system meant that any improvement today would bag them only a couple of points, and not enough to stay in contention. Jovial Angus Dawe made his Britcar debut in a night race, and returned in his BMW E36 with Jason White, sharing the ninth row with Class 3-proper competitors Adrian Watt and Chris Wilson, in the Duke Video BMW M3.

Class 4 invitees Mike Brown and Mark Lemmer shared the Barwell Honda Integra, heading the tenth row of the grid, in front of Production title contenders Ian Lawson and Mike Wilds’ BMW, whilst the eleventh row featured the RJN Motorsport Nissan 350Z of Playstation competition winner Lucas Ordonez, gaining some night racing experience in advance of the Dubai 24hrs, partnered by erstwhile Britsports runner Alex Buncombe, and the Elise of Chamberlain and Randeria. Struggling with an electrical glitch, and on its own at the back, was the VW Golf GTi of Tony Gilham and Anna Walewska.    

The drivers had been unanimous during the briefing that the early-evening conditions demanded a second pace lap, and this was traded with the Clerk for a slightly earlier race start. The officials, however, stretched the deal to its limit, giving short notice of only a three-minute pit-lane opening. This caught a number of teams on the hop, and lining up at the closed-off pit exit, and about to miss those two important pace laps altogether were Chris Wright, Wayne Gibson, Richard Chamberlain, Lucas Ordonez, Anna Walewska, Witt Gamski, and, importantly, the Barrett/Shepherd Porsche, forcing a last-minute change of strategy; “We were only half-way through fuelling when we got one-minute warning  - we had planned to fuel heavy for Jay’s first stint, leaving me a short stint at the end, but since we were half full, I had to go in first” rued Barrett later.  Further woes in the Neil Garner garage meant that, due to a mysterious last-minute electrical problem, the Cintrano/Morcillo Porsche would not be racing.     

So, two green flag laps, and the field was let go, with the Eclipse Mosler slotting in front of Taylor in the Topcats version. Mercer had capitalised on the gap left by the missing MJC Ferrari, and was followed through by Steve Colbert’s Porsche, while Drayson had no doubt remembered last year’s first-corner shenanigans, and settled in fifth; and that was the way they crossed the line after the first flying lap. An early safety car period ensued on lap four - quite why was unclear in the darkness - but a short unplanned pit stop by the Harrison’s Marcos may have been the result of something that happened on the track. By lap six, the field went green again, and Henry Taylor was harrying Sean McInerney for the lead, whilst the bunching- up under the safety car had allowed some of the pitlane starters to get into contention – Gamski, for instance, was already up to tenth. The Class 2, and, in essence, the GT title battle, was topsy-turvy, with Firman holding the class lead over Chris Wright, and with Barrett, still acclimatising to his unplanned, cold-start stint, needing to push on.

Ten laps on the board and Taylor made his move into the lead, but McInerney was having none of it, grasping it back in a drag race across the line three tours later. Taylor clung on though, the gap hovering around half a second, before McInerney upped the ante, punching in a new fastest lap and extending the gap to nearly two seconds. Taylor responded, clocking a 47.788 which would stand as the fastest of the race.

Adrian Watt had already suffered a spin at Clearways in the Duke Video BMW M3, and, with Peer Slipsager’s Ferrari 430 nudging Richard Chamberlain’s Lotus into a spin at Graham Hill Bend, and a further car off the track at Paddock, it was time for another safety car period with 27 laps chalked up - just too early for the mandatory pit stops. Lap 31 saw the caution lifted and McInerney leading Taylor by a fairly comfortable three and a quarter seconds, while Steve Colbert, in the Class 2 FSR Porsche, had taken Mercer’s Marcos for third.

Traffic was now coming into play for the lead battle, the lead gap falling to just over a second as the two Moslers picked their way through the back markers.

With the pit stop window well and truly open on lap 34, Drayson and Gamski took the opportunity to come in, but perhaps – or perhaps not – this was slightly premature; for next time around, the safety car was deployed yet again. A rally-style headlight pod from one of the Topcats Marcos pair had fallen off slap-bang in the middle of Cooper Straight and, whilst nobody hit the debris, it was indirectly responsible for the retirement of Angus Dawe’s BMW M3, as he explained; “A light pod – is that what is was? A white Porsche suddenly swerved right into my side, obviously to avoid the debris, and sent me into the barriers”. Dawe’s car limped back to the pits, where Torquespeed boss Phil Cutts costed-up the damage. The Torquespeed garage was, in fact, just a bit too busy at this point, for Wayne Gibson had brought Kevin Clarke’s BMW in with a misfire and the Brummies had decided to call it a day.

Now, fortunes can change under the safety car, particularly on the Brands Indy Circuit with its short lap, and one lucky recipient of the officials’ somewhat cavalier interpretation of the rules was Jonny Cocker, who took the Barwell Aston through the green light at the pit exit, only to find himself filtering into the crocodile behind the safety car and, better still, second in the train.

Lap 40 signified the end of the safety car period and also, ironically, McInerney making his mandatory stop, leaving Taylor, Lajos Varga in the RPM Viper, and Firman as the top three on the road. Speaking of Firman; he, of course, led Class 2 at this point, but Harrison, in the Topcats Mantis, had recovered to the class runner-up spot in front of Jay Shepherd, having relieved Rod Barrett after his atypical 11-10ths thrash in the Hawthorns Porsche.   Missing from the Class 2 mix was the Masarati/Wright Porsche, having thrown a belt early in the race. It was replaced after a lengthy stop and they made the flag, but too far back to be classified. Another car spending an inordinate amount of time in the pits was the M-Tech Ferrari 430, a fire extinguisher deploying inadvertently ruining an impressive run for Duncan Cameron and Mike Edmonds – they carried on to finish 17th overall.

Taylor and Firman – the leading pair now – left it late to perform their stops, with the Topcats Mosler blurring the margins of the rulebook before Andrew Beaumont brought the black and silver machine back onto the track, in third place. The earlier safety car debacle had shifted the fortunes in Class 2, exacerbated by the importance of track position on such a short lap, and the Class 2 roles had been reversed. Going into his stop with a two-lap lead, Firman handed the Jaz Porsche  to Steve Bell, only to find the car now had a two lap deficit, with Shepherd in front and Huggins in the Topcats Marcos behind.

Cocker was now on a charge and, whilst the gap between the Barwell  Aston and the Eclipse Mosler wasn’t tumbling, it was being chipped away – fifteen seconds became fourteen, then thirteen – and a lead-battle before the race finished did look possible.  Steve Bell was giving it everything to claw the Firman Porsche back into contention, sparks flying as the car grounded on the kerb at Graham Hill. Virtual novice Malcolm Stott, in the Class 2 FSR Porsche, had a brief moment in front of Keith Robinson’s Ferrari 360, before Robinson rapidly grabbed fourth place back again. The Class 2 Topcats Marcos had a slow, smoky lap before posting a retirement, though it had done enough to be the third classified Class 2 points-scorer.

Sean McInerney kept Cocker at bay, the gap being just 2.274 seconds as they took the flag after 104 laps, but it hadn’t been plain sailing for the Eclipse Mosler, as Sean explained; “The lights went out early in the race, and the team were telling me over the radio to push the third relay in, but I mistakenly pushed the fuel cut-out switch and Henry went past me. I wasn’t worried about the Aston at the end; I’d eased off really, because I was more worried about be taken off by a back marker.”

Andrew Beaumont brought the Topcats Mosler home third, clinching the Class 1 title in the process; with Gamski/Robinson Ferrari 360 fourth overall, after a late-race tap from Almo Coppelli in the Kessel Ferrari 430. Between the warring Ferraris on the lap chart were the Stott/Colbert Porsche, seemingly punching above its Class 2 weight, and the Mercer/Fores Marcos.  Rod Barrett and Jay Shepherd had the Class 2 win sewn up and, in the process, the GT Championship; the fearless Bell finishing a lap further back in second.  Keith Gent and Michael Caine headed the Class 3 invitation runners in the BMW E36, with Gent, still in his first season of racing, finding night racing in the big league a little daunting; “Those big Britcars coming alongside me in the dark frightened the life out of me” he candidly revealed.

Newcomer Lajos Varga had performed well in the RPM Viper, up to third before taking the mandatory stop; which was sadly mistimed, attracting a whacking 87-second penalty and leaving Ian Flux out of contention, finishing 10th overall. Mark Lemmer never fails to impress and, with Barwell race engineer Mike Brown in the Honda Civic, finished 12th overall; the Class 4 invitation victor.  “It’s good to get stuck in to the GT cars, and all credit to Mikey” said the Barwell boss, who has a formidable record in Brands Hatch night races.

Lucas Ordonez, in the RJN Nissan 350Z, accomplished his objective of night race experience/signature grabbing, and was the Class 3 invitation runner-up, assisted by the more experienced Alex Buncombe; the Class 3 podium being completed by the road-going Elise of Chamberlain and Randeria. The points in Class 3,.though, went to the Adrian Watt/Chris Wilson BMW M3, which pitted just before the end of the race, but was classified 18th.

Ian Lawson and Mike Wilds did their usual solid job, with the usual judicious use of indicators to assist the passing GT cars, accruing maximum points in Class 4 proper and taking, with Anthony Wilds, the 2008 Production Cup title, with Ian and Mike wrapping-up the overall Britcar Drivers championship.

Lastly, spare a thought for poor Anna Walewska. Denied a drive at last month’s PSI round due to engine failure in Tony Gilham’s  VW Golf, the team were determined to get out in this race; but an over-enthusiastic safety cut-out switch meant that, between numerous pit stops, Anna circulated at a pedestrian pace. “It was cutting out every lap when I came on to the straight and I had to use what momentum I had to bump start it” she rued, after taking the flag as an unclassified finisher.

Steve Wood