Oulton Park - 3rd July 2004

Qualification:

Results:

Race Report:

Conditions: Sunshine and showers.

Qualifying:  An uneventful qualifying on a virtually dry circuit.  No problems encountered and everyone took to the grid for the race.

Race: 15 minutes.

As the red lights go off, the race gets under way.  Sort of.  Richard Perry jinks to his left to avoid a stationery car, that of pole sitter Tim Storrar.  Reeve gets away first into Old Hall Corner.  Turner makes a good start in Bs, and in the Class C battle, Draycott makes up several places.  

Reeve leads down The Avenue, pursued by Perry, Weston and Smallridge.  Blanchett goes for a spin, and after just 45 seconds, the red flags are waved because of Tim Storrar’s car.  He is stuck on the grid, having suffered gearbox failure, and is ignominiously craned off.

Race restart: 15 minutes.

Smallridge makes a bad start from the 3^rd row.  Four cars go side by side past the commentary box heading for Old Hall Corner.  Reeve gets there first, then Weston, Penn is third, Perry fourth.  Weston is overtaken down the Avenue.  Barker suffers gearbox trouble and retires into the pits. A poor start from Pymm sees him trail down at the back of the field.  

At Fosters Weston takes the inside line and squeezes past Reeve into the lead.  Perry and Penn have swapped places, Perry now 3^rd and Penn 4^th. 

As they leaders round Lodge for the first time Weston is first, Perry is second, with Reeve down to third.  In the Cs, Mooney attempts to get past Sapcote at Old Hall, while Dignan sits behind them both.

The race order at the end of Lap 1 is:  Weston, Perry, Reeve, Penn, Smallridge, Nettleton, Turner, Tipper, Helme, Visor, Blanchett, Sapcote, Mooney, Dignan, Actman, Langford, Staines, Draycott, Bramley, Pymm, Edmundson.

On the other side of the circuit, Perry is clearly lining up an attack on current leader Weston, as they go up Clayhill and pass under the Yokohama bridge.  Penn is falling back from the leading A’s, being steadily caught by Smallridge.

End of lap 2, Weston is still ahead, but Perry is on the attack at Old Hall and makes a beautiful pass up the inside to grab the lead.  Reeve is still third.  In the Bs Smallridge crosses the line in front, but Penn gets the inside of Smallridge on the exit of the corner.  In Cs, the class leader Sapcote retires to the pits.  Dignan has moved ahead of Mooney, and Sapcote’s retirement promotes him to the class lead.

Reeve slows, and limps through Fosters into retirement.   Perry is on a flier, catching Weston.  He sets the fastest lap 1 minute 9.5 seconds.

End of lap 3 and Weston is again in the lead, with Perry is just 1.78 seconds behind.  Smallridge is just 0.12 seconds ahead of Penn, and the next time round at Old Hall Smallridge goes on the inside and retains his position from Penn.  But down the Avenue Penn goes down the outside and looks like he might get past again.  Nettleton is still third in class ahead of Turner.  Helme has got ahead of Tipper, promoting himself to third in class.  Blanchett, battling for class B honours with Visor, overtakes Dignan on the inside at Old Hall.  Mooney is second in C, followed by Actman, Langford, Staines, Draycott, Bramley, Pymm and Edmundson.

Perry is now ahead of Weston again, and pulling away.  But the battle continues for Class B, third overall, with nothing, absolutely nothing separating Penn and Smallridge.  Nettleton is next, followed by Turner,  Helme, Tipper, Visor, Blanchett, Dignan, Mooney, Actman, Langford, Staines, Draycott, Bramley, Pymm and Edmundson.

Up Clayhill towards Druids, Smallridge pulls to the left to take the outside line around Penn.  The pair of them come round, and keep changing places.  Penn is ahead down the Avenue. 

In Cs Actman and Langford are battling away.  Further back there is a four way fight, currently led by Staines, then Bramley who is now ahead of Draycott, followed by Pymm. 

Perry comes over the line with one headlight blazing, lapping Edmundson.  Once more, Penn is just ahead of Smallridge, but its still as close as ever, 0.153 seconds apart.  

Dignan consolidates his class lead by extending the gap from Mooney.  Closer though are Actman and Langford, side by side down the pit straight, 0.084 seconds separating them over the line, and Actman gets ahead down the Avenue.

Penn crosses the line ahead of Smallridge and takes the outside line at Old Hall to maintain track position.  They are heading for traffic and Penn pulls out from Smallridge.

Tipper looks ready to attack Helme as they come over Deer Leap, but Helme hangs on.

Langford has fallen away from the Actman battle by spinning off at Cascades due to brake failure. 

Just 2 minutes remain.  At the end of lap 10 the race order is: Perry, Weston, Penn, Smallridge, Nettleton, Turner, Helme, Tipper, Visor, Blanchett, Dignan, Mooney, Actman, Bramley, now ahead of Staines, Pymm, Draycott and Edmundson.  But Staines gets back in front of Bramley as this on-track battle shows no sign of abating.  As they pass in front of the commentary box Staines pushes Bramley wide, half onto the grass.  Bramley keeps control of his car, but it allows Pymm to close up.

Time is up.  The chequered flag is waved, and Richard Perry takes his first outright Midget Challenge victory.   Weston is second.  Helme takes third in class.

Third overall and Class B winner is Penn, in the end a massive 0.837 seconds ahead of Smallridge!   Netttleton is third in class.

Dignan takes another Class C victory, followed by Mooney and Actman.

Midget Gems:

Nigel Barker: Blown the gearbox.  Shredded first gear on the restart.  I nearly hit Tim on the first start n’all.  It’ll be fixed by tomorrow night!

Howard Visor:  Dramatic start.  I had to get between Tim and the pitwall - only choice I had.   Some of the C’s got ahead of me, and then I saw Peter (Blanchett) spin off.  Second time I had a much better start, keeping up with Peter (Tipper), with Mark in the distance.  Had a great race with Peter (B).

Peter Blanchett:  I just overcooked it on the first corner of the first race.  I collected it, restarted and then the red flags came out, so they let me restart from my original grid position.  I had a good start second time, but then Howard got ahead of me and that was that.  Peter Dignan was crawling all over me for a while, and I couldn’t move up on Howard enough. 

Paul Draycott:  It was going well, just not fast enough.  Without windows it was like riding a motorbike. 

Carl Edmundson:  Freshly done engine, but there’s something wrong with it.  At least it’s run in now.  I had fun and didn’t crash.

John Helme:  Was I third in class?  I don’t know.  Would make a change. I’ve got a hack engine in at the moment.  I had fun with Peter Tipper.  I got past him on the second lap and began to pull away from him.  But blow me - he then started catching me! 

Peter Tipper:  The chassis was poor, the engine was worse and the driver was terrible.  But I did have a nice salad at lunch time!  I tried to keep John honest, and honestly couldn’t have tried any harder.

Andrew Actman: Oooh - I got third.  I thought I was fourth.  That Mr Mooney is going fast.  I couldn’t get past him.  He was taking the right line all the time but didn’t make a mistake.  So I went on the grass - 3 laps in a row at Old Hall, and at ‘Actman’s’ corner on the last lap.

Mark Turner:  I’m cursing Tim.  Didn’t want the restart.  I shot up two rows on the first start.  In the race proper I was trying to keep up with Robert (Nettleton).  He was going well.  I enjoyed it.

Ian Langford: I blew a rear wheel brake cylinder.  I span off at Cascades - there weren’t any brakes!  Had a good race with Andrew.  I got past him, then got stuck in neutral and he got me back. 

Ed Reeve:  Bent valve.  I was giving it a bit of welly though - teach me to be a bit kinder to my engine! 

David Pymm:  Not a bad race.  Quite a good dice.  What messed me up today was practice - wrong set up, I thought it was going to rain.  At least the car is in one piece for Silverstone.

Tim Storrar:  The gearbox has exploded completely.  Don’t know if I’ll be able to afford a new one.  Pity, it would have been a good race today.

Gareth Penn:  Good race.  It was close.  I managed to use the traffic to my advantage to keep Will behind me.  I like it close like that.  I’m glad we managed to keep it clean. 

William Smallridge:  A good first start, but the second start wasn’t so good.  I think I was going backwards!  Had a bit of bad luck with the traffic at the end, but it was a close race.

Dominic Mooney:  Enjoyed that.  Very hard work though.  Want to get a bit closer to Peter (Dignan).  Andrew and I had a few trips across the grass.  Swapping paintwork with Peter as well.

Richard Perry:  It was good.  Various people weren’t there, but the car at long last is flying.  Silverstone will be good! 

David Weston: It was lovely to be leading.  Really good race.  First time here in four years.  The car’s handling lovely, just lacking slightly in the engine department.

Richard Sapcote: I came out of the old hairpin and up  the hill, ahead of Peter (Dignan) which was nice - I’d been ahead for a couple of laps.  Suddenly the engine made a huge noise and the exhaust pipe had come out in the middle.  So nothing serious.  I got a point for pole. 

Ian Staines:  Race was fine, apart from having Paul up my bottom for most of it!!  Fairly steady.  I think I was holding them up.