Great racing on Saturday with HRCA, qualified P2, but came in with a broken nose carrier, just about
got it fixed for race 1, got a super start and led away and slowly pulled away from the Rumbling
V8’s, 5 of them now, they started to trip each other up a bit, that allowed me to get away, until the
safety car came out, on the restart I held off flooring it until only 40mtrs from the line in hope Jackie
Patricia Cochrane couldn’t use his power to drive past me, it worked, just, he passed me but I
squeezed past in turn 1 for the lead, but I could see them coming closer , until Gareth Thomson spun
his fabulous Ginetta G10 in Turn 5 that backed everyone up behind him, that gave me a good gap,
which I carried to the Flag for the win in Race 1.
Race 2 was a different affair, got too
much wheel spin off the line, still thought I had the lead until Bernard Foley in the MGB GTV8 flashed
past having got a flyer of a start, that started a hare and a tortoise race between the two of us.
Bernard cleverly placed his car perfectly in the twisty corners, then used the superior grunt of the V8
to power past on the straights, after a number of Laps Jackie Corcoran picked me off on the Main
straight with his amazing speed, 185.6 kph to my 144.9kph, tried hard to get him back, even pushed
him into a half spin which dropped him to 4th just ahead of Mark Russell in the beautiful Morgan Plus
8, Gareth Thompson also picked me off on the straight, Gareth then went onto take the Lead from
the MGB GTV8 and cruised on to take the win. Congratulations to him in his new car. Jackie in the
Tiger eventually caught and passed me again on the Straight for P3, in fact my car was only the 6th
fastest on the day behind all the V8’s through the speed trap, my car is quicker through the twiddly
stuff but if I don’t get a clear run, I’m a sitting Duck on the Straight, but it makes for some very
interesting racing, fair play to Bernard he had a Plan and executed it perfectly. Thanks to The HRCA,
Mondello Park , all the Officials and Marshalls on the day, for a great Days racing.
Stephen Kelly
Photo Credit Autosportpics
