This second instalment to my season racing in the Sports 2000 Championship covers the last four races in the series. As you will have read in the earlier article things had got off to good start, but it was far from over yet!

For Race 5 of the championship we moved to the Brands Hatch Indy circuit for our annual Sports 2000 festival weekend. Unfortunately entries were down on previous years, but we still had thirty-eight cars competing. The meeting was split into practice, two heats, followed by a last chance race and then the final. Practice proved to be rather difficult as no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the car to do anything faster than a 50.7 second, despite me being able to do a 49.7 last year. It appeared to be a handling problem, as I was getting too much power oversteer exiting Clearways which was obviously hurting my lap times. On closer examination we discovered that the rear suspension was incorrectly aligned following an earlier change to two rose joints. Thankfully we were able to correct the fault using traditional means before the race (i.e. string and a tape measure). However, I had only managed to qualify a lowly tenth in my heat!

The organisers decided after practice the imbalance in the number of cars racing in each heat and I was lucky enough to now find me fifth on the grid for the heat as I had been in a faster qualifying session. At the start I managed to make a good start and found myself in third position on the run up to Druids. Two laps later I was able to pass Rupert Russell under braking into Paddock Hill bend and take second place. That result put me on the second row of the grid for the final the following day, directly behind the poleman Anthony Wilds.

The final was over thirty laps of the Indy circuit and unfortunately I didn’t make a terribly good start and found myself fifth on the exit from Paddock. I was fortunate to make up one place under braking for Druids by taking the outside line and then hung on alongside another competitor around the corner; that left me with the inside advantage for Graham Hill bend where I was able to capitalise the advantage and take third place. For the next five laps Anthony Wilds, Jonathan Loader and myself slowly edged away from the chasing pack. Then on the run down to Graham Hill bend Wilds front wheels locked up and he careered off onto the grass. We later learned that he had a jammed throttle. I then settled into chasing Loader hard to try and force him into a mistake with the pair of us circulating less than a car length apart. Around mid-race distance the pressure paid off and Loader spun when turning into Clearways; I went to the left to avoid him and then had to take to the grass to avoid being hit. Unfortunately I half spun but kept the engine running and was able to restart just before the chasing pack arrived. My lead was down to two seconds at the end of the following lap but I was able to extend that and win by five seconds at the flag and take my second consecutive Festival. As an added bonus my win put me into the overall lead of the championship.

For Race 6 we returned to Brands Hatch, but this time we got to play on the fantastic Grand Prix circuit! With a full grid plus reserves it was important to at least get three early laps in to qualify before really having a go at a quick lap time. I chose to go out early and was at the head of the queue in the pit-lane as the green flag was waved for the start of practice. I took off like a scalded cat and my out lap from the pits was quicker than some would manage as a flying lap during the session! However the times started to tumble as the tyres warmed up and I managed to get into the 1 minute 35’s on my sixth lap, a time that would have easily put me on pole the previous year. However I could see form the pit-board that more was needed and in my final practice lap I managed to put together a really good lap that I was convinced would be good enough for pole, only to lock-up slightly under braking into Stirling’s. I discovered afterwards that my lap time had taken 1 minute 35.02 seconds and I had qualified second, 0.002 seconds off the pole time. If only I hadn’t locked that brake!!!!!!

The following day we formed up on the grid on a nice bright sunny day for our 30 minute race around the Grand Prix circuit with a full grid of 38 cars. I was on the outside of the front row hoping to make a good start and take the lead into the first corner. Unfortunately my front-row rival had other ideas and when the lights turned green he made an equally good start to head me into Paddock. We both got our heads down and by the end of the lap had a clear gap between ourselves and the rest of the field.

After around six laps the peace of our private little race was disturbed by Matt Manderson in a borrowed Carbir chassis. Matt had stepped into the car at the last minute from his regular ProSeries Carbir. During practise he had managed to qualify in sixth position, but with the benefit of new tyres he was flying in the race. He caught me on lap seven and unfortunately I was unable to hold the charging Matt off for very long before he was past. He then headed off in pursuit of race leader Anthony Wilds and drove past him on the next lap. Anthony managed to have a few moments trying to keep up with Matt which made me think that I might just yet finish second, however third was where I finished in a great race around a fantastic circuit. What’s more I still led the overall championship by a few points.

For Race 7 we travelled to the recently modified Oulton Park circuit, where changes had been made to the Knickerbrook chicane. Leaving the pits for the first time in practice I was thinking about the changed circuit, but was amazed when I got to Knickerbrook to find that the chicane had been moved about two hundred yards back up the road towards the earlier corner. I don’t quite know what was wrong, but I never really seemed to get into the groove at Oulton and was disappointed to find that I had only qualified in sixth position.

For the race I was positioned on the inside of the third row. When the lights turned green I made the worst start that I can ever remember and sat there spinning the rear wheels. By the time that I made it to the first corner I had dropped a further three places to ninth, disaster! Unfortunately for me, the car in front was driven by one of our most experienced competitors who proceeded to drive the widest car that you could imagine. I spent virtually the entire race trying to get past, but to no avail. He was quicker out of the slow speed corners than me, but I was quicker through the high-speed stuff, but couldn’t make it stick unless I was prepared to take a huge risk under braking and risk getting punted off. Eventually, with about two laps to go, he made a mistake and spun at Druids and let me through. However, by this time the rest of the field had disappeared and I finished a lowly eighth.

Race 8, the final round of the championship was held at Donington Park in mid-October. Going into this last race my championship position was looking a lot less secure. By virtue of the discard system I needed to finish five places ahead of Anthony Wilds and beat class rival Jonathan Loader. Practise proved to be rather uneventful, however I was disappointed to only qualify fifth; despite setting a time less than half a second off pole!

For the race itself we had a short shower as we were leaving the collecting area on slick tyres, so the weather was going to add another key factor to the championship outcome. However, I was optimistic that the weather might benefit me rather than others. At the start I made a reasonable start, however it all got a little crowded at the first corner and I was demoted to sixth. On the run down through the Craner Curves I managed to make up a place and the proceeded to lose the advantage when I lost control of the car and spun in tandem with race leader Wilds. Luckily neither of us made contact with anyone else and rejoined having only lost a few places. Over the next two laps I managed to claw my way back up to sixth with Anthony Wilds just ahead and Jonathan Loader in front of him.

At this point the race became a lottery as the black and yellow chequer flag was shown indicating that the leader should slow to 50mph and the rest of us should all form up in a crocodile behind. Unfortunately, this failed miserably as the leader continued at unabated speed leaving the second place driver to head the field. On the restart the lead car had a huge lead over the rest of the field and to make matters worse I had two backmarkers between myself, Wilds and Loader. Unfortunately, by having to sit behind the backmarkers until passing the green flag for the restart I immediately lost around five seconds to Loader that I could not close by the finish which meant that Wilds won the overall championship, Loader the class with me third overall and second in class. What made this particularly hard to bear was that Loader and I finished on the same number of points but me won on count back on the higher number of third place finishes!

In summary, I had my most competitive season ever leading the championship from mid-season. Unfortunately it slipped away from me at the end with a couple of less competitive races. Despite the obvious disappointment I really enjoyed the season and am looking forward to 2004 when I move up to the more powerful Ford Duratec powered championship (hopefully in a new car).