The start of a new league on a “Bob Harley” built track – could it give him an advantage in the racing?

In the GT12 qualifying Ashley King was quickest after two rounds but Louis Parker went a lap better in round 3 to take pole in the final, Ashley being in second place closely followed by newly promoted Steve Donald in third place.
Darren Ford was the leader in F2 with Stephen Deacon second and Daniel Lacey third.
David Snowden had a commanding lead in F3 over John Stringer in second place, Courtney Orme was third.
The Club Mardave class was a little depleted Mike Simpson being top in F1 ahead of Paul Galbraith.
In F2 Wes Wray was fastest, Alex Forster second and Jenson Wray third.

The Mardave final Paul Galbraith got ahead of pole position driver Mike Simpson but Mike eventually caught up and passed him to take the win. It was a “Team Forster” battle for third and fourth places with Alex getting the upper hand – better watch out though Alex as Harvey is getting quicker every week!

Paul Galbraith won the GT12 C final, Courtney Orme finished in second place after a close race with pole position driver John Stringer, but the top placed driver in F3 was David Snowden who was fifth in the B final.

Matt Popejoy was the quickest driver in the B final but it was Chelle Snowden who won the race with Matt and Daniel Lacey having a great race for second place – it went to Matt by a margin of just over half a second.

A great race to finish the evening followed which saw Louis Parker take an impressive win, Ashley King being second after a close battle with Steve Donald and Darren Ford taking fourth place.

So after round 1 there are four drivers with maximum points in the league – Mike Simpson, Louis Parker, Darren Ford and David Snowden. Can they all retain their 100% record next week?

An ordinary clubnight this week following the completion of the winter league last week.

Qualifying
In the GT12 class Richard Hicklin set the pace in round 1 of qualifying with Louis Parker second and Mark Deacon third, both a lap down. Newly promoted to F1 driver Steve Donald, Bob Harley and Chelle Snowden took the next three places a further lap off the pace.
In the Club Mardave class Paul Galbraith was quickest followed by Roy Matthews and Alex Forster.

In round 2 Louis Parker took over the lead just over 4 seconds ahead of Richard Hicklin with Chelle moving up into third place, Mark fourth and Stephen Deacon fifth. Could it be two Deacons in the A final this evening????
Paul Galbraith improved on his first round time to retain the lead in the mardave class with Jordan Galbraith moving into second place ahead of Roy Matthews.

Louis retained his lead in the final round to take pole in the A Final, Steve Donald had a good drive to move into third place, Chelle was fourth and Mark fifth.
In the mardave class Joshua Galbraith moved up into third place to line up on the final grid behind his dad Paul and brother Jordan – could they make it a clean sweep 1-2-3 in the final???

Finals
The mardave final was first and with all three Galbraith’s keen to be the top driver of the evening it was going to be an exciting race. Pole position driver Paul had a poor first lap and found himself down in third place by the start of lap 2 behind Jordan and Joshua. These two were consistently lapping quicker than Paul and extending their lead. At the finish Jordan was the winner narrowly beating Joshua and 3 laps ahead of Paul with Roy Matthews finishing in fourth place. Yes it was a Galbraith 1-2-3 but not quite as Paul had planned it!

Paul Carter after just being promoted to F2 won the GT12 C Final after trailing in the early stages and having a great race with Rob Hambridge who finished second and fast improving Jack Walsh third.

Bob Harley and Nick Wallace were lapping the quickest in the B Final with Alun Forster also going well. A close race and it was Bob who was the winner, Alan taking an excellent second place and Nick finishing third.

The last race of the evening was the GT12 A final where Louis Parker led the drivers away from pole position, it was car 2 Richard Hicklin who took and early lead after lap 1 with Louis second, Mark Deacon third and Matt Popejoy in fourth place. Louis and Richard were both lapping very quickly with Louis retaking the lead on lap 9 leaving Richard to try and chase him down again. A great drive from Louis gave him the win with Richard having to retire on lap 28. This left Mark Deacon and Steve Donald fighting for second and third places, it was a close thing but Mark finished 3 seconds ahead to take second. Matt Popejoy was fourth and Stephen Deacon an excellent fifth – yes there were two Deacons in the A Final for the first time at Burton.

Next week sees the start of the Spring League.

Louis Parker wins a thrilling A Final beating Gavin Maciver by 0.55 seconds with Mark Deacon taking third place and Steve Donald fourth.
Jordan Galbraith dominated the club mardave class being 2 laps better than everyone in qualifying and winning the final.

Track
A new James Hart design this week was excellent

Qualifying
GT12
In round 1 of the qualifying F2 driver Steve Donald put in a great drive to be fastest followed by F1 drivers Gavin Maciver and Mark Deacon. Daniel Lacey was in second position in F2 followed by Javier Jimenez.
Paul Carter was the leading driver in F3 a lap ahead of David Snowden.
Mark Deacon put in a stunning drive in round 2 to take the lead just ahead of louis Parker with Steve Donald unable to improve on his first round result and dropping down into third place. We were looking forward to a final round shoot out this week for League third place trophy between Ashley King and Mark but with Ashley not racing it was not to be – was the pressure too much?
In the last round of Louis Parker hit the front finding an extra two laps to take pole in the finals, Mark was second and Gavin third. Steve Donald was fourth and best in F2 with Daniel Lacey second and Matt Popejoy moving up into third place.
Paul Carter headed F3, David Snowden was second and John Stringer third.

V12 Mardave
Mike Simpson won round 1 with Alex Forster in second place and Roy Matthews third, in round 2 “Team Galbraith” sprang into action with Joshua, Jordan and Paul taking second, third and fourth places – was the evening to be a Galbraith 1-2-3 finish in the final?  Roy moved ahead of Alex in F2 with Wes Wray third.
In the last qualifying round Jordan moved up a gear to have a runaway victory by two laps to take pole with Mike second and Joshua third.

Finals
Jordan Galbraith started from pole on the mardave final grid and had a great drive to set the fastest lap and win by a clear lap. Behind him things were much closer between Mike Simpson, Joshua and Paul Galbraith. In the end Mike finished second just managing to hold off Joshua who finished third. Roy Matthews was the best in F2 ahead of both Harvey and Alex Foster.

Courtney Orme after having a few issues with his car earlier in the evening came good in the GT12 D final to win with Callum Howard, Keith Sutherland and Alwyn Hodges all finishing on the same lap in that order.

The C final saw David Snowden have a good win with Rob Hambridge finishing second after a bit more tweaking to his cars setup. Jack Walsh finished in third place.

Bob Harley took the B final and the best lap time, Matt Popejoy was going very quickly but had to retire from the race leaving Daniel Lacey and Javier Jimenez to fight it out for second and third places, it was a great battle with Daniel finishing ahead by just 0.3 seconds.

The A final had a dramatic start with car 3 Gavin Maciver moving straight into first place on the opening lap closely followed by Louis Parker, Steve Donald and Mark Deacon. Louis was chasing Gavin hard and on lap 10 overtook to take the lead only for Gavin to regain it 2 laps later. Steve was holding on to third place despite Marks best efforts to catch him. Louis was lapping the quickest and gradually eating into Gavin’s lead but could he catch and overtake him. Mark finally moved ahead of Steve on lap 26 to finish in third place. The battle between Louis and Gavin continued and with everyone watching intently got ahead of Gavin on the penultimate lap to win by half a second. Wow, what a finish to a great evenings racing!

Congratulations to all the league winners

The penultimate round of the winter league produced an excellent evenings racing on a great track design.

Qualifying
In the GT12 class James Hart was quickest after round 1, but in form Louis Parker took over the lead in round 2 and consolidated pole position for the final with another fast run in the last qualifying round. Darren Ford was also flying and took second place ahead of James in third, setting up the prospect of a great final.

Steve Donald was the best placed F2 driver with Stephen Deacon eventually getting the better of Daniel Lacey in round 3 to take second place, Daniel being third.

In F3 David Snowden and Paul Carter were four laps ahead of everybody else, David being quickest, Paul second and Courtney Orme third.

In the mardave class Mike Simpson qualified for pole position in the final with Roy Matthews second and Alex Forster third.

Finals
The mardave final produced the closest finish of the evening, Mike Simpson was the winner and with just over a minute of the race remaining Roy Matthews was in second place with a five second advantage over Alex Forster in third spot. All this changed on lap 21 when Roy encountered a problem with his car and Alex shot into second place with a 4 second lead. Roy pulled this back to under 2 seconds with a lap to go, Alex made a minor error on the last lap resulting in a wheel to wheel race for the finishing line which Alex won by 2/100th of a second to claim second place by half a wheel – what a finish! – well done Alex.

John Stringer won the GT12 D final, Keith Sutherland still working on his new cars setup was second and Callum Howard was third, a close race this with all the first three drivers finishing just a few seconds apart.

David Snowden had a good drive in the C final to take the win, league leader Paul Carter was second and Courtney Orme third.

The B final was a good race with all the drivers evenly matched for speed, Steve Donald and Gavin Maciver had a great battle with Steve eventually taking the win with Gavin a couple of seconds down. Stephen Deacon (the only “Team Deacon” driver this week) was also on good form and took third place.

Louis Parker was on pole position for the A final and made a good start, James Hart got ahead of car 2 Darren Ford on lap 3 and set his sights on trying to catch Louis. The race for the win was between these three drivers, Louis had his car set up well and was lapping very quickly and kept James at bay until lap 10 where he eventually took the lead and went on to win the race. Good stuff to watch this, great performances from all the drivers.

So with just one round of the league left several of the league positions will be decided next week . In the GT12 F1 Mark Deacon has a slender advantage on just 3 points over Ashley King for third place. In F2 a good result by Matt Popejoy could see him snatch second place fro Daniel Lacey and in F3 it is still possible for John Stringer to push Courtney Orme out of second place.
Finally in the mardave F2 Alex Forster leads Roy Matthews by just 3 points – on this weeks results this will definitely be close at the end of the evening. So roll on next week – no pressure drivers!

New track white markings used for the first time this week for the start of the superleague, with rounds planned to take place during the months of February, April, June, August, October and December.

Qualifying
After the first round James Hart was leading on 42 laps with Mark Deacon making an impressive start to be in second place with 40 laps, Darren Ford and Gavin Maciver both being a further lap down.
In F2 Steve Donald led the way on 38 laps, Stephen Deacon second on 36 and Daniel Lacey in third place with 35 laps. Both “Team Deacon” drivers lying in second place in their divisions – could it be their evening.
David Snowden was leading F3 on 31 laps, Jack Walsh second on 27 laps, just a few seconds ahead of John Stringer.
In the club mardave class Mike Simpson was quickest with 32 laps, Alex Forster second on 26 and Harvey Forster 20.

Round 2 saw Darren Ford take over second place from Mark Deacon who failed to improve on his first round score, club chairman Rob Hambridge racing his new car for the first time moved up into 11th place overall just ahead of Ashley King.

In the final round James Hart improved his time to be quickest, Mark Deacon shot back up into second place a lap clear of Darren Ford, Gavin Maciver and Ashley King who had his first good run of the evening.
Steve Donald was best in F2 followed by Daniel Lacey and Stephen Deacon – could Stephen keep his car performing for the finals after his recent reliability problems?
No change in the club mardave class positions from the first round.

Finals
Mike Simpson won the mardave final, Alex Forster was second and his brother Harvey was third.

Jack Walsh had a great win in the GT12 C final after a good race with John Stringer and Courtney Orme, in the end Jack was almost one lap ahead of John and Courtney a further lap down. Well done Jack!

A very competitive B final produced some close racing between Daniel Lacey, Stephen Deacon and Chris Holmes. Unfortunately Chris had to retire part way through the race with electrical problems. Stephen was slightly quicker than Daniel and was first across the finishing line to take a well deserved win, Daniel was second and Chelle Snowden third. A win for “Team Deacon” set the standard for the evening, could Mark repeat the result in the A final?, we were about to find out.

James Hart made a good start from pole with Mark in hot pursuit, at the end of lap 2 Mark had taken the lead and was keeping ahead of James despite a lot of pressure. James regained the lead on lap 6 but Mark was still challenging hard, his excellent run came to an end however on laps 13 and 14 when first Darren Ford moved into second place and then Gavin Maciver also got past Mark to take third place. They finished in that order, a super race to watch, Steve Donald also having a great race to finish in fifth place just 6 seconds adrift of Mark. Ashley King finished in last place a further 2 laps down.

A great start to the league, remember drivers five scores out of a possible six count at the end of the year.