MG TROPHY Championship Silverstone

Despite the MG TROPHY Championships apathy towards the Silverstone National circuit two late entries from Richard’s Marsh and Buckley pushed the grid to double figures – still somewhat less than hoped for.

These two non-championship rounds, on a very nice day, produced some exciting racing, in fact a call from ‘upstairs’ congratulated me on an excellent first race saying “you don’t need a big grid to put on a good race”.. praise indeed. Both the races were sponsored by College Motors, driver Richard Marsh’s car sponsor, boss Simon Ballard supported us at Cadwell Park last year and his generosity was once again most welcome in these tough financial times.

Few tested on the Friday but both regular Julia Penfold and newcomer Ray Ferguson put in some decent laps. Ray has bought Sarah Budby’s old car and has put many miles on the clock over the past few months and is considering a full season in the championship. the organisers welcomed four new drivers to the championship:

Toby Sowery – out in the Finishline 170 hire car, signature hunting to enable him to start his F3 career after mopping up in the Easykart and TKM championships; he was racing again on the Sunday at Donington in an MR2.

Dave Candy – joined from the MGOC in his ZR 170

Ray Ferguson – as mentioned above, in Sarah’s car now up to 170 spec.

Ian Boulton, – out in his new ZR 160 the first built to the new 2014 regs to be seen racing.

Qualifying

Prior to qualifying Dave Candy had an odd problem at scrutineering with his passenger door where it refused to open however this was soon fixed. The Trophy qualifying was the 3rd of the day at 09:43, unfortunately Ollie Coles was still in his novice briefing session so had to qualify out of session. However, his day went further downhill with an off following a broken left front hub . On investigation more damage had been done so Ollie opted to withdraw. Further problems ensued when Toby Sowery’s car ground to a halt before he’d completed his 3 laps, a blocked catalyst being the problem, this was sorted promptly by the Finishline team but a hacksaw and welding torch were required! Class B pole went to Jake Fraser-Burns with a 1:09.723, class C to Richard Marsh on 1:11.996 (a short lived new class record) and class D to Ian Boulton on his own with a 1:20.357 a record for this new 160 class, this was Ian’s first time in the car and his first time at Silverstone.

Race 1

The first of the two 20 minute Trophy races was straight after lunch and everyone heeded the call to be in the assembly area promptly enabling the race to start ahead of schedule at 13:19. The two 190’s of Jake and Richard Buckley shot away from the others and put on a race long duel, Richard was leading when Jake had a very sideways moment at Copse late on dropping him well back, however Richard eased off to let him catch up to continue the race but then missed a gear letting Jake back through! A tremendous effort saw Richard catch up to the back of Jake but it was too late, the gap on the line was 0.006s !

The class C race was equally exciting with Richard Marsh, Julia Penfold, Dave Candy, Toby Sowery and Chris Boulton in close contention. Ian Boulton in the 160 was having a lonely race at the back. Missing was Ray Ferguson off on the first lap after wrong slotting and hitting an all time record of 9970 revs on a VVC !

Julia took the class C lead passing Richard Marsh on the Wellington Straight only to find she was travelling too fast and spun on the approach to Brooklands dropping her well back, the order at the flag was therefore Marsh from Sowery with Julia 3rd, Dave Candy and Chris Boulton completing the order.

Fastest laps Class B was Jake Fraser-Burns 1:09.536 on lap 9. Class C was Julia Penfold with a 1:11.863 (n/r) also on lap 9 and Ian Boulton improved on his quali time recording 1:19.78 (n/r) on lap 10.

Driver of the Race: Jake Fraser-Burns.

Race 2

The MG Trophy cars were the last race of the day and with both Coles and Ferguson missing we were down to 8 cars but Ashley Woodward (from the Cockshoot Cup) joined us in his ZS to make it 9.

Once again the two 190 cars were away dicing as before but a damaged drive shaft on the Buckley car meant Jake had the edge giving him the win, things just held until the end of the race when the shaft finally broke. The 170 race was almost as good as before with lots of changing places, initially Marsh had the lead over Chris Boulton followed by the ZS then Julia, Toby and Dave, Ian in his 160 bringing up the rear. Toby and Richard swapped places a few times but it was Richard who took the 170 class win with Toby just 0.278s behind. The next 3 to finish were Chris, Dave and Julia now spaced out by increased gaps. Ian brought the 160 home in 7th place after again improving his best lap time by almost 1.6 secs.

Fastest laps Class B was Richard Buckley 1:09.100 on lap 5. Class C was Toby Sowery with a 1:11.528 on lap 5 breaking Julia’s earlier record and Ian Boulton improving considerably on his previous best with 1:18.188 (n/r) on lap 9.