Classic VW Cup

Round 6 Pembrey 15/16 Aug 2015

Round 6 saw us all make the long trip to Welsh Wales, some travelling nearly 300miles to be there!

It was a weekend of mixed weather and mixed fortune for some....

Qualy

We awoke on Saturday to clear blue skies and temps in the high teens, with everyone signed on and scrutineering passed for all with no issues we all headed out for Qualifying, track temps were high but despite there having been quite a few sessions before ours grip on some parts of the circuit were still not great, which may have been as a result of a pair of trucks that were out before us doing displays as part of the circuits 25th anniversary!

Lark finished at the top of the timing sheet in Class A with Sanderson, who had never driven the circuit, not too far back. Class B saw Fowler out on his own...literally and Class C saw Adams way ahead of the other Class C cars by a couple of seconds, unfortunately for Chris he burst his top hose in doing so and this would put pay to his weekends racing as it resulted in the head gasket blowing.

Moll had suffered with his brakes during the final part of qualy so decided to check them and found that one of the discs was cracked in three places! A new disc was sourced in Swansea, but this meant he had to sit the first race out as there wasn't time to get there and back and fit it to the car in time.

Race 1

Lark got jumped by the fast starting Hondas as the lights went out, everybody made it cleanly round the first lap and then at the start of the second lap disaster struck for Simpson, when as he hit the brakes to slow his Vento down for the hairpin he appeared to have a big lock up and slammed in to the back of one of the Hondas and Sanderson's Leon at nearly 60mph. Luckily nothing other than pride and metalwork was hurt, but it brought out the red flag while the debris was cleared from the track. Everyone formed back up in their original grid positions, with the exception of those caught up in the incident. Sanderson limped back to the pits with a damaged rear wheel and managed to get it changed, but by the time he had the race had been restarted so he was effectively a lap down.

Larky didn't get mugged off the restart and was soon showing the rest a clean set of heels, Sanderson started cutting his way back through the field un-lapping himself and in doing so posted lap times that would have put him right up at the front if he hadn't have got caught up in the unfortunate second lap incident. Meanwhile in Class C, Penfold capitalised on Adam's and Moll's misfortunes as he led home the rest of the VWs to not only win his class but finish 2nd overall. 3rd overall was Johnson in his Class C Ibiza.

Race 2

After some rain overnight, Sunday's weather was looking less settled and while it stayed dry all morning, the dark clouds rolled in as the cars filed out of the assembly area to form up for the green flag lap. As the drivers set off it was Penfold's turn to have issues as his gearbox jammed in 3rd gear, so he pulled off the circuit and would play no further part in the race. Sure enough the Welsh weather lived up to its reputation and the rain started to fall as the drivers completed the formation lap. Johnson was replaced by Vowles due to ill health, so it was he, Moll and Scaramanga that formed the back end of the grid alongside one of the Hondas.

As the lights went out everybody streamed down to the first corner hairpin, with some out there on slicks and some on the compulsory List 1B tyres it was set to be an interesting race, for a second it looked like we might have a repeat of the accident from Race 1 as Scaramanga locked up his slicks on the now damp track and used Moll as a brake, fortunately it was more of a glancing blow and both cars were undamaged apart from some paint transfer. As the rain continued to fall the guys on slicks were still able to get some heat in to their tyres and those at the front were still able to gap their better shod competitors.

After their coming together at the first corner Scaramanga was able to get up the inside of Moll on the 3rd corner and Vowles also capitalised by sticking to Scaramanga's bumper and following him through leaving Moll hung out on the outside of the corner.

Sanderson carried on where he finished race 1...on a mission to get to the front from 9th to 5th in the first few laps, setting the fastest lap of the race in doing so before yet again lady luck was not on his side as the car started to misfire on lap 12 of 17, he managed to coax it home but it dropped him down to 9th overall.

Meanwhile there were some other great battles right the way through the field, Lark, Owen and Allen were battling at the front and as they reached the chequered flag 0.8secs separated the top 3, with Owen pipping the fast finishing Lark by 0.120secs. Further back Vowles and Moll were having a battle of their own and as they finished there was 0.6secs between them with Moll taking 1.5secs out of Vowles in the last lap and matching Lark's final lap time in doing so.

Further back again and Classic VW Challenge virgin Steven Watson was having a great ding dong with the Honda Accord of O'Gorman with the former pipping him at the post by 0.2secs at the flag.

Unfortunately there were a couple of non-finishers in the form of Scaramanga who spun out on lap 8 with a broken rear hub and Fowler who pitted on Lap 6 with alternator failure.

Lark and Moll took their respective Class honours and Vowles took 2nd overall behind Lark and ahead of Moll.

So with two rounds remaining Lark has closed the gap to Wood from 17 to 2 points in Class A, Fowler is now leading Class B by 5 points and in Class C Moll has halved the gap between himself and Adams to 7 points.

This has the makings of a very close finish to the first year of this new series.......next stop is Snetterton on 19/20 Septemeber!