Britcar Dunlop Production GTN Championship, Snetterton – Report
Gent And Gino Win

It’s a while since we’ve seen Keith Gent and Gino Ussi at a Britcar meeting, but the former rivals combined to take the Production win in Snetterton’s two hour race. 

Gent provided the car, the familiar but revamped BMW M3, and Gino, in his first outing this season, did the driving; as usual tackling the whole race alone. Starting from Production pole, and an overall lucky 13th on the grid, the BMW went into an immediate lead, which it was never to lose, even creeping up to fifth overall in the joint BEC/Production field as the thirstier GT cars took their pit stops. Being an Invitation entry, no points were awarded, so it was the battles behind which bagged the championship honours, and mixed fortunes.

Bernard and Marcus Hogarth had been delighted with the progress in their Seat Supercopa in the run-up to the race, but pitted in the opening laps, and suffered a speeding penalty (which was later rescinded) and a later spin at the Murrays corner, which blighted their race. They were the penultimate finishers, ahead of the APO Sport Seat Leon of Alex Osborne and James May, who had a troubled race, starting with an early puncture, which jeopardised their championship aspirations. Not classified were the Synchro Honda Jazz, Dave Allan pitting several times with fuel surge problems before retiring the car after 17 laps; the luckless J-Tech squad of Mitson, Pascall and Kite, whose Seat expired just after the half-way mark; and the #45 works-backed Mazda MX5 GT, which had been hauled up the order by Mark Ticehurst in his opening stint, but was parked by Owen Mildenhall in the final half hour of the race.

Behind Ussi’s convincing lead it was Mick Mercer ( Topcats Ginetta G50), Chris Randall, starting Simon Phillips’ Elise, and Mark Cunningham’s Seat Supercopa that disputed second place. Randall seized second, and was just three seconds ahead of the Ginetta at the halfway mark, with Cunningham just a further second or so back. But after the pit stops, the Cunningham threat diminished, with father Peter bringing the Seat home in seventh place, while Gary Smith, having taken charge of the Topcats Ginetta, took the fight to the Elise, closing down Simon Phillips and taking the top points just one lap from the finish. “To finish a two hour race with a fag paper’s width between a few cars is fantastic. We got so unlucky with the final safety car, putting that pesky Topcats Ginetta right in my mirrors. I was praying all the way down the straights that I could hold them off until the twisty bits! Gutted to be overtaken on the very last lap, but that’s racing and I bloody enjoyed it!” said Phillips after the race.

Jeff Mileham’s heavily revamped Elise held station behind the fighting trio in the early stages, and Steve Guglielmi’s closing stint hauled the machine up to fourth at the end. Jensen Lunn made similar progress in the second half of the race in the Strata 21 BMW M3 started by Sarah Bennett-Baggs.

Once again, the reigning Production champions, Richard Adams and David Green, returned as invitees and poached the Class 2 win in their Seat Leon Cupra, finishing three laps ahead of class rival Tim Saunders; the TH Motorsport team doing well to get the Honda Civic to the grid after Saunders was thrown off in the warm-up when a suspension component sheared. Mike Wilds and historic racer/journalist Piers Ward completed the Class 2 podium in the little Mazda MX5. The Sams Boyz Seat Toledo sported a bog-standard engine to replace the sensitive WTCC-spec lump and, with best-selling crime novelist Peter James having a grassy moment in his opening stint, Andre Severs finished the race fourth in Class 2, 13th overall.

The RJN Nissan 370Z, piloted by Nissan/Sony GT Challenge winners Brian Heitkotter and Jann Mardenborough, ran solidly to eighth and, despite an early spin, the BPM Ginetta G50 of Owen Thomas and Ashley Woodman made promising progress for the pair.

Steve Wood