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News: Castle Combe Race Report
GAZ Shocks Production BMW Championship
Round 5 Castle Combe 04/05/2009
Race Position Chart (by Adrian EDDY)
After qualifying, Championship Leader Rob Smith found himself on pole with Liam Crilly alongside. With a grid of 42 cars plus 7 drivers reserves, it was looking like an action packed race.
Off the line, pole position sitter Rob Smith managed to defend the lead from Liam Crilly while behind, everyone was jostling for Position which caused Kevin Welsh, Andrew MacGregor and Andrew Partridge to retire on the opening lap. By the end of the opening lap, the top 3 of Smith, Crilly and Ravi Ramyead were covered by 6 tenths of a second.
One of the biggest movers on the opening lap was Neil Adams, who had jumped up from 33rd on the grid to be 23rd at the end of the 1st lap, while Peter Longworth had made up 7 places after starting 34th, while normal front runner Alan Wileman was having a bad day, starting 15th, found himself in 17th at the end of lap 1.
As they crossed the line to start their 2nd lap, Ramyead was looking to take 2nd away from Crilly at Folly, but Crilly held on to the position. This meant that the top 4 were covered by 1s at the end of the 2nd lap. Further back, Jack Gabriel carried on his march up the field, being in 12th after 2 laps.
The 1st race winner of the season, Alan Wileman was struggling down the field, ending up in 15th after 2 laps, which matched where he started on the grid, while the big opening lap movers, Adams and Longworth were stuck in 23rd and 27th respectively. Warren Gazzard also retired on lap 2.
The top 3 at the start of the 3rd lap were slowly starting to break away from the rest of the pack, with Crilly starting to haul in Smith and looking like he wanted to take the win away from him, while Tim Wilson was also coming into play, having taken 3rd from Ramyead on the run into Tower corner, and as they entered Camp corner for the 3rd time, Wilson was all over the back of Crilly’s 318i.
While the top 4 carried on breaking away from 5th placed guy Tony Smith, who was up to 5th after starting 9th on the grid was starting to race himself as he couldn’t keep up with the top 4 of Smith, Crilly, Wilson and Ramyead, yet the guy in 6th place, Richard Thomas wasn’t able to keep up with Smith, due to Mike Dugdale baring down on him.
As the leaders finished the 4th lap out of 10, the gap 1st to 2nd was down to 0.312s, with 3rd and 4th within 1s of Rob Smith and Crilly, ready to clear up if the 2 of them had a coming together, while the gap back to Tony Smith was almost 5 seconds after 4 laps.
Lap 5 saw the top 4 of Rob Smith, Crilly, Wilson and Ramyead continue to pull away from the rest of them, and as the leaders entered Camp, the gap 1st to 2nd was non existent at 0.163s, with Tim Wilson also in the lead battle. Mean while, in the pack Mickey Daly was having a moment and lost 3 places, dropping from 8th place to 11th place as Len Colley, Jack Gabriel and Clint Bardwell passed, Gabriel having made up 7 places in 5 laps as he crossed the line 9th.
Lap 6 saw Tim Wilson looking to pass Liam Crilly around the outside of Folly corner but Crilly managed to hold the position on the run to Quarry corner. As the leaders turned into Camp for the 6th time, the gap 1st to 2nd had increased to half a second, Smith still leading the way, now from Tim Wilson who had found a way past Crilly.
Back in the midfield, Clint Bardwell spun coming out of Camp corner and dropped right back down to 19th, meaning he lost 9 places and about 15 seconds as he recovered. From where Bardwell spun, things had closed up between and Colley, a recovering Mickey Daly and a charging Alan Wileman, less than 1 second covered the 3 of them down in 9th, 10th and 11th places.
Lap 7 out of 10; the top 4 of Smith, Wilson, Crilly and Ramyead were clear of Tony Smith, Tony being some 4.8 seconds behind Ramyead, yet he wasn’t under pressure as Dugdale was over 2 seconds behind him in 6th. Meanwhile, while the top few were racing themselves, Wileman was making up yet another position as he passed Daly for 10th, meaning that his progress up the field from 15th had been slow but progressive.
Further back, Lawrie Dunster was looking to pass Graham Collison for 23rd, which became 22nd when Bardwell had yet another incident and lost another 5 places, recovering in 24 place, but while having that incident, Ian Shepherd, Mike Jones, Neil Adams as well as Dunster and Collison all passed him.
Image by Jon Bryant of Snappyracers.com
Lap 8 saw the top 4 still in the same order, Rob Smith, Tim Wilson, Liam Crilly and Ravi Ramyead with 5th placed guy Tony Smith unchallenged. The gap at the front extends itself to almost 1second as Crilly starts to close in on Tim Wilsons 2nd place.
Further back, the battle for 6th was closing up as Mike Dugdale and Richard Thomas were starting to squabble, which meant that Tony Smith’s gap over them was expanding to over 3 seconds. Meanwhile, Andrew Cotterill spun on the start/finish straight and fell to the back of the field.
Lap 9 – the top 4 of Smith, Wilson, Crilly and Ramyead had settled down into a steady order with Tony Smith in a very safe 5th place, while Dugdale and Thomas were still fighting over 6th place, but by the end of the lap Dugdale had pulled out a slightly bigger gap over Thomas heading onto lap 10, the final lap.
Further back, series debutant Stuart Waite was losing 15th to Miles Howard, but after starting 26th on the grid in a self built car, Waite’s performance was very impressive.
The gap between the leaders had come down to 0.630 seconds as they crossed the line, so Wilson was on a last lap charge to take the win away from Rob Smith, with Crilly and Ramyead safe in 3rd and 4th places, with Tony Smith racing himself on the last lap.
The main action was further back as Clint Bardwell carried on his recovery drive after his spin and another incident that saw him in 24th on the 8th lap, he’d recover to 20th.
At the flag, Rob Smith took the victory, his 2nd of the season by 1.420 seconds from Tim Wilson and Liam Crilly in 3rd, with Ramyead claiming his best result of the season in 4th with Tony Smith 5th and Mike Dugdale 6th.
After the race, the stewards decided to exclude Jerry Brown from the rest of the meeting after an incident where he went off and came back on the track in a way that wasn’t considered safe and caused an accident.
After all this, Rob Smith has extended his championship lead to 14 points over Liam Crilly, with Tony Smith 3rd.
The next Championship rounds are at Snetterton on the 13th and 14th June.
Race Results top 3:
1. Rob Smith, 10 laps in 14mins 16.072
2. Tim Wilson @ 1.420s
3. Liam Crilly @ 1.850s
Fastest Lap: Rob Smith, 1m 23.996s on lap 8.
GAZ Shocks Production BMW Championship
Non Championship Round Castle Combe 04/05/2009
Race Position Chart (by Adrian EDDY)
Rob Smith claimed his 2nd pole of the day ahead of race 1 runner up Tim Wilson. Liam Crilly didn’t enter this race as Ravi Ramyead started from the back as a last minute entry.
Off the line, everyone was clean and sensible, and a rocket start saw Nick Barke take the lead from the outside of the 2nd row of the grid, passing Dugdale, Wilson and Smith to lead at the end of lap 1.
Starting from the back of the field, Ramyead crossed the line at the end of lap 1 in 23rd place, having made up at least 14 places on 1 lap, while the other 2 drivers who started at the back, Robin Welsh crossed the line in 20th while Kevin Welsh crossed the line in 30th place.
Lap 2 saw Barke leading from Tim Wilson, with Rob Smith and Dugdale in 3rd and 4th, the top 4 covered by 3.5 seconds after the 1st lap, Further back, most of the competitors were involved with some side by side or very close action, with Stephen Murphy being left behind right at the back.
Neil Adams was involved in some changes for positions as well, firstly passing Mark Bate then being repassed by him, this was for 19th and 20th positions, Bate would then spin at Quarry which would drop him to 33rd position.
Starting lap 3, the lead had changed hands as Tim Wilson lead across the line from Barke with race 1 winner Rob Smith still in 3rd, with a 1.7 second gap back to Mike Dugdale with Alan Wileman in 5th, Wileman and Dugdale being the closest together of the front runners.
After starting at the back after being a late entry, Ravi Ramyead was up to 13th after 3 laps, while his end of the grid friends, Robin Welsh and Kevin Welsh were in 14th (Robin) and 23rd respectively.
Lap 4, the top 6 were steady, with Tim Wilson leading from Barke, Race 1 winner Rob Smith, Mike Dugdale, Alan Wileman and Mickey Daly. The top 5 were covered by 3.5 seconds with Daly a further 9 seconds back in 6th place.
Mark Gazzard encountered problems on lap 4 which caused him to slow down and fall to the back of the grid.
Lap 5 saw the leaders lap Stephen Murphy for the 1st time, with Wilson pulling out a lead over Barke of 1.8s, while Barke, Smith, Dugdale and Wileman were covered by 1 second.
Lap 5 also saw a change for 6th as Stuart Waite continue his climb up the field after passing Mickey Daly, Waite had started 21st on the grid, and had make up 15 places in 5 laps.
Lap 6: the top 5 had remained the same, with Wilson stretching his lead over Barke to over 2.3 seconds, while the next 4 cars were covered by less than 1.5 seconds, with Waite in 6th still 9.5 seconds behind Wileman in 5th.
Ravi Ramyead was up to 11th place by the end of the 6th lap, with the number 2 BMW 318i of Robin Welsh in 9th place and the number 78 BMW 320i of Kevin Welsh further back in 23rd. Stephen Murphy had been lapped by everyone up to Adrian Eddy, who was running 16th at the end of lap 6.
The 7th lap out of the 10 lap race saw the same top 5 with Wilson building his lead to 2.390s but saw it eaten into slightly at the end of lap 7, losing 0.2s on the lap to Nick Barke, who in turn saw his gap to 3rd placed man Rob Smith shrunk, all the gaps between the top 5 had come down, with Smith and Dugdale only having about 0.3s between the top of them as they crossed the line.
6th placed guy, debutant Waite had also seen the gap grow to 9.4s between him and Wileman, but had a 1.5s gap over 7th placed guy, Mickey Daly.
Ramyead was now in 10th place at the end of the 7th lap.
Lap 8 saw Mike Dugdale and Rob Smith have contact which caused Dugdale to spin out and retire to the pits with a puncture while Smith recovered to 11th. All of this meant that Waite was now in 4th place from 21st on the grid, and from the back of the grid, Ramyead was now in 7th, while Robin Welsh was in 8th place.
The 2 backmarkers, Stephen Murphy and Kristian Dean had both been lapped, Murphy by everyone up to Jack Gabriel, while Dean had been lapped by the top 3. The gap between Wileman and Waite has increased to just over 10 seconds due to all the lapping.
Lap 9 of 10 saw the top 5 stay the same, with Wilson driving smoothly towards his 3rd win of the season, ahead of Barke and Wileman, who had closed up with Waite a very solid and impressive 4th place, while from the back, Ramyead had passed Brian Jones and was in 6th place from the back of the grid, while Robin Welsh was in 8th place and Kevin was in 20th place.
The last lap saw Wileman pass Barke for 2nd as Wilson drove off to claim the win by 2.935 seconds at the flag, and having lapped Mark Gazzard on the final lap as well.
On his debut, Stuart Waite took the chequered flag 4th, 13.680 seconds off of Tim Wilson, with Mickey Daly taking 5th and from the back, Ravi Ramyead took 6th place.
Robin Welsh took 8th after starting at the back and Kevin Welsh took 18th.
After contact with Mike Dugdale, Rob Smith finished 11th
Race Results:
1. Tim Wilson, 10 laps in 15m 01.102s
2. Alan Wileman @ 2.935s
3. Nick Barke @ 3.635s.
Fastest Lap: Kevin Welsh in a 1m 24.842 on lap 9.
Race Report by Matt Auger (matt_macau_bmw320si@hotmail.com)
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