British GT Thruxton – Sunday GT4 Race Report
A Good And Bad Day For RPM

With the withdrawal of the Beechdean Aston Martin from the Championship and with the Moore Racing Maserati Trofeo suffering major damage in the morning warm-up session, it was almost an all Ginetta GT4 grid for Sunday’s race, with the six usual full season G50 entries all making the grid.  The only variety was provided by the #54 Promotorsport Nissan 350Z and despite a spirited crack at the race the Nissan would prove to be outclassed, for today at least, and would be a distant last class finisher.

This would be a race with some early, quite horrifying and unwelcome drama. The leading trio of G50s were getting away from a chasing trio with Joe Osborne in the #51 Team RPM G50 starting from class pole position from Rob Austin (#55) and Bradley Ellis in the #52 RPM car the breakaway trio.

It would be Ellis though that headed the trio around after the first lap and he would hold the position until the fourth lap, when Osborne would remerge from the chicane ahead once again. Ellis, though, was still well in touch and next time around would take a look at grabbing the class lead once again on the very fast run through Church and on the run down to the chicane.

Osborne, though, had countered; Ellis looking to take the inside line for the chicane.  Rob Austin meanwhile was still well in touch and with Ellis committed to his line he made his move.  Exactly what happened next isn’t at all clear, but suffice to say, there was substantial contact between the #55 and #52 cars, Austin’s car immediately losing its front bodywork and spinning into the infield shedding body panels as it went.

The #55 car though got by far the best of this one, Ellis leaving the circuit on the outside at high speed, barely shedding speed before impacting with the edge of a marshals post and continuing through the top of the adjoining earth bank; the massive deceleration leaving the car wrecked.

Miraculously, Bradley emerged from the smoking car unaided at first, but immediately realised that he was in need of medical assistance.  With substantial chunks of Ginetta on the racing surface and a number of rescue vehicles arriving at the accident scene a red flag was inevitable.

The effort to ensure that no further physical damage was done to Bradley took some time, with the medical crews taking their usual care before finally taking Ellis to Winchester Hospital; where, eventually, after a raft of tests a fractured bone in his neck was diagnosed. Ellis should be home with a neck brace by Monday.

The #52 car, though, was not going to play any further part in proceedings, and the #55 car had appeared highly unlikely to be back either, with almost all of its front and rear bodywork missing.  The presence of the LNT truck though meant a ready supply of spares were available and with a lengthy gap before a restart would be possible, the car was fitted with replacement front bodywork, copious amounts of gaffer tape; and with the front windscreen smashed the rear screen was removed to prevent it being blown out anyway with the airflow. As a side note the question does occur as to quite how a car was permitted to race in this state when the same car was prevented from completing a race earlier this season due to non-functioning rear lights.

The restarted race would be over just 30 minutes and there would be just six cars in the class contesting a rather low key half hour in GT4.

The #51 car would again be the pacesetter, Joe Osborne and Nigel Moore running to a largely uncontested win with the #88 IMS Consulting car of Matt Nichol Jones and Stuart Linn unable to make an impact on the leader but remaining largely unthreatened from behind either.

One car which was making up time and places was the #55 car, or most of it; a still rather shaken Rob Austin making his way up to third place very quickly and Hunter Abbott holding onto the place to the flag. However, having allowed the car to race, it was subsequently disqualified; presumably for being only half a car at the finish.

The #71 Stark Racing car actually led the class briefly courtesy of Ian Stinton opting to pit as late as possible. The red car would lose fourth place in the last three minutes to the #50 Team RPM car, this pair having contested a close fought 30 minutes with the Nissan way further back but taking the finish nonetheless.

GG