BARC Championship Races

With ten races run and eight more to the end of the season, BARC South Eastern’s Tin Tops and Intermarque series are at a critical stage. The races at Brands Hatch on June 12 and 13 saw some significant developments for points-chasing drivers at this halfway stage.

Entries were boosted to virtually full grids by Fiat and TVR drivers taking part in their own competitions, and all four races produced plenty of action and excitement.

Andrew Mitchell scored a brace of outright Cannons Motor Spares Tin Tops victories to strengthen his position at the top of the table, heading T2 leader Antony Harrison in both races. Peugeot driver Andrew still has to shed his two least successful results having scored in every race so far, but the same applies to the next drivers in the table, Ken Angell and Gary Chappell, so he remains in a strong position.

Ken is in fact the only driver with a perfect winning record – not too surprising as he’s been the only one in T1, but the lack of opposition means he can’t score maximum points. Not far behind these three is Beetle pace-setter Dave Charlton who has been beaten twice and failed to score once, but he was back in winning form at Brands.

The meeting was a disaster for T4 leader Berni Baxter. The local man’s Fiesta blew a core plug in race one and the dumped liquid took Russell Turner off the road, promoting Nick Boon to a lucky T4 win despite a major grass-cutting excursion. Boon inherited again in race two when Turner’s car fell sick.

Driver of the Weekend was Michael Cox, who achieved two fifth places. He earned the first of these from 31^st on the grid after his Fiesta failed a noise check and he missed qualifying. Steven McGillivray’s Beetle wasn’t the quickest car in the race but was among the smartest, being judged best prepared.

In the Quaife Intermarque League – filmed for later TV transmission thanks to joining forces with the TVRs – Steve Hall seized the advantage after duelling neck-and-neck with Keith White here and in previous rounds.

Hall was flattered by his winning margin in race one after backmarker traffic hampered his rival. Keith led race two after an audacious overtaking move, but later bumped a lapped TVR and damaged his steering. White is likely to miss Lydden and can therefore count all points scored to the end of the season, whereas Hall must drop two results at some stage.

A double Class C win for Jez Hobbs helped him close on fellow Caterham driver John Chasey but Jez has his work cut out, having missed Snetterton and probably Lydden as well.

An intermittent Class A programme has restricted Paul Hoggarth’s points scoring. He won at Brands having perhaps expected stiff competition from guest driver Rod Birley, but Rod’s Escort went home with a broken gearbox after qualifying.

Until mechanical gremlins intervened Mike Thurley had probably his strongest outings since switching from short circuit racing, and his Peugeot was judged the best car. Richard Smith was Intermarque Driver of the Day, fighting back from retirement with a burst tyre in race one to take a hard-earned fourth at the second attempt.