The first official day of British summertime signalled the end of the bright, mild weather and the introduction of bitter winds with wintry showers for the ITV Telethon 90 Saloon Car Festival at Brands Hatch on March 25th.

An excellent assortment of saloon events made an entertaining programme with road saloons, Fiestas, Honda CRXs and modified saloons providing competitive action while the BRSCC Historic Saloons showed that well presented nostalgic machines can still produce fast and close racing.

Practice was marred early on by an incident involving the spinning Anglia of Bob Bullen which was sadly collected by one of the A40s. Both cars were sidelined for the whole session but no red flags appeared. As the cars were practically on the racing line at Graham Hill Bend it was surprising to see practice continue, particularly as oils and fluids appeared to be running across the circuit. Another competitor, who shall remain nameless, ran the entire session with dense clouds of oil smoke pouring from the back of his Anglia. He ignored frantic waving from the pit lane and it was a shame that the Black Flag wasn't used to bring the car in and check it for oil spillage.

The track became increasingly slippery and slow qualifying times were the result with the notable exception of Barry Wood driving Steve Warrier's Mustang, who put in an unbelievably quick time of 54.08 in the opening laps of qualifying. This phenomenal time would put Barry Wood a full second under Phil Wight's existing lap record of 55.10 in the same car.

Bob Sherring's beautiful new Galaxie 500 sounded great and looked impressive but Bob was unable to use the full 7000cc in such slippery conditions and he qualified second with a time of 56.39. Then came a string of Anglias headed by Rod Birley in Peter Ryan's immaculately prepared 1800 Ford Anglia. Rod was bedding in new brakes for the first few laps and then found the track too dodgy to use much “welly”. His fastest lap was his last as he took third on the grid with 57.17.

Surprisingly, the next Anglia was a Class C one driven by Ben Fielding, although considering the car was prepared by George Folley and was running a Dave Rowe 1498 engine, it was bound to be quick in the right hands. Then came Paul Webb's Class B 105E and Glen Maskell's Class C example. The first non-Ford of the grid was Tim Hope-Frost's BMW 2000ti which occupied seventh in front of two more Anglias, Neil Wood's Class B and Gordon Streeter's Class C. Tenth on the grid was John Searby's Austin A40 which was the first Class D car in the order.

Wintry showers drenched the track and then dried in the March sun as the weather continued to dominate theafternoon's proceedings (quite lyrical all this.. isn't it? - Ed.) Just before the Historics’ race light rain made the track treacherous, but blue skies came over as the cars formed up on the grid. As they left for the warm-up the Galaxie twitched wildly in a vain effort for grip. Many competitors found the start of the race quite hairy, but the Galaxie was spectacular as Bob Sherring fought for traction. He eventually left the grid with a rear wheel collapsed under the car. Sherring couldn't understand why the car refused to move, but he managed to coax it into movement before abandoning ship on the grass at Paddock Bend.

While all this was going on, Rod Birley made an excellent start from the outside of the front row reaching Paddock fractionally ahead of the Mustangs. Birley held a tight line on the approach to Druids hairpin and with Wood slotting in behind him they completed the first lap with Birley edging away.

Caution was the name of the game over the first half of the race as Barry Wood nursed the Mustang around, but the track began to dry and the Mustang started to close on the diminutive Anglia. Ron Fielding made a fantastic start in his Class C Anglia, occupying third some way ahead of Glen Maskell's Class C challenge, while Tim Hope-Frost's BMW 2000ti took up an impressive fourth just ahead of Paul Webb's Class B Anglia. At half distance the track was dry and the Mustang was on a charge, Birley's Anglia was quicker into the corners, but the extra power from the Mustang took Barry Wood past on the pit straight. Wood dealt skilfully with the back markers over the closing laps to maintain the advantage, but Birley was never far behind and he tried to mount a challenge in traffic on the final lap. Despite all Rod's efforts the little Anglia couldn't catch the Mustang and finished two seconds behind the victorious Barry Wood to win Class B by a very wide margin.

The first two finished some way ahead of Glen Maskell's Anglia, which inherited the Class C win after the impressive Fielding had a tyre problem. Tim Hope-Frost brought the BMW home in fourth with Fielding's recovered Anglia on his tail. Four second later Neil Wood finished sixth with his Class B Anglia making a good day for the Wood family.

The remainder of the field was well spaced out, two Class C runners, Gordon Streeter and Duncan Heard finished seventh and eighth with Andrew Colley the Class D victor bringing his Hillman to the flag in ninth overall, the only other runner to remain unlapped.

Let's hope the weather at the picturesque Cadwell Park will be kinder for the next round on April 13th. Hopefully the Galaxie will be repaired and other Brands Hatch casualties will have their cars sorted so that more of them will last the distance at Cadwell. If Rod Birley selects the right tyres his Anglia will be worth watching and Neil Wood is sure to improve as the season progresses and if we have a few more class A runners then the series will be great to watch.

On Sunday 15th and Monday 16th April the Thundersaloon Championship of 1990 began it Brands Hatch. Although some of the exciting promised newcomers did not appear there was a fairly healthy grid of seventeen cars for practice on the Sunday.

We had installed a brand new turbocharger for the event, so were quite surprised to discover that we were suffering from a lack of boost during qualifying. As there was little we could do to improve the problem in the time allowed, we persevered with reduced boost. Although we had only 1.5 bar we were encouraged to record a time of 48.96 and we looked forward with anticipation to the Starion's performance with our planned maximum boost of 2 bar.

The car was transported back to our garage at home so that we could work on it in comfort before the next day's race. We replaced the turbocharger and altered the waste gate in addition to doing the usual pre-race check.

On Monday morning we were given a short warm up session, but as soon as the Starion went out on to the track we found we had too much boost. Again there was little time to alter it so we put in a restrictor which would at least make the car driveable while we scrubbed in some new Hoosiers.

When the grid sheet was issued we were pleased to see that we had qualified on the front row of the grid next to the Chevrolet Sierra of Powles and Manley, this was a much improved performance by the Sierra team. The second row was occupied by Tony Wole in Jim Mensley's Honda Legend and Stevens and Millard in the Vauxhall Senator. Then came the two class B Escorts of Sherlock/Bridger and Edwards/Shaw, surprisingly the Stars and Stripes Manta was back in eighth place next to another Escort belonging to the Minton brothers.

There was enough time between practice and the race for us to set the boost to the desired amount and Steve King was looking forward to starting the event from the front row. Last year Steve drove his own class B Escort and didn't have the opportunity to start from the front. As they gathered on the grid some ominous clouds appeared and all the teams hastily prepared their wets although all the runners started on slicks.

The Sierra took an immediate lead at the green light with the Honda slotting in behind. Steve held third for a while but was soon passed by the Senator. As the Starion passed the pits we realised why he had dropped to fourth, we could hear a definite misfire. In a moment of sheer bravado the Honda made a lunge for the lead on the approach to the hairpin but he lost control, spun round and ended up reversing at high speed along the grass into the gravel trap. This brought out the pace car while the marshals dug the Honda out and Wolfe rejoined a couple of laps adrift. The leading Sierra was the first of the front runners to pit, he was unlucky to be the victim of a puncture. Whilst in the pits they decided to change to wets as the weather had worsened and it was starting to rain. In spite of the misfire Steve was lapping under 50 seconds and moved up to tail the leading Senator before pitting for the driver change. We were lying second after all the driver changes and Rod closed on the evil handling Senator, the track was really wet and the field remained on slicks. One car was revelling in the slippery conditions and was rapidly moving up through the field, this was the Pontiac engined Manta in the hands of owner Nick Oatway, Nick had suffered handling problems in practice and softened up the rear suspension, he subsequently found he had the ideal set up for the wet. The Manta passed Rod to take second and went on to pass the Senator for the lead. The Starion was catching the Senator but Rod was taking no unnecessary risks as he fought to control the wheelspin. When Rod drew alongside, Chris Millard fought back valiantly, Starion and Senator battling side by side. Eventually Rod forced the Senator wide as they rounded Clearways and was able to edge ahead along pit straight. They finished in that order behind the winning Manta.

All in all we were satisfied and relieved to finish second in the event which had turned into a test of bravado. There is never enough time to change to wets unless the track becomes drenched and everyone decides to change as well. The drivers should all be praised for the way they coped with the weather as very few actually fell foul of the conditions, although many were not able to sustain a competitive pace.