A highly dramatic dramatic season quite fittingly came to a highly dramatic end as the second year of the Great & British Dunlop Motorsport Festival climaxed at a well-attended Brands Hatch. The level and depth of competition across all the core championships was highlighted by the fact that none of the titles had been decided coming into the final round of the campaign, which had taken competitors the length and breadth of England and Wales as well as a sojourn to Spa Francorchamps in Belgium.
One of the hardest fought campaigns has been the quest for the Mini Challenge title with Cooper S driver, Scotland’s Oly Mortimer, trailing Ireland’s Jenny Ryan of Club class, despite having been top of the standings until the penultimate round a fortnight ago.
Mortimer needed big results and big points yet despite his best efforts he could only muster sixth and seventh places in both races while Ryan took two thirds to secure the crown.
On the day, the top of the podium belonged to Nathan Coulter in race one and Martin Depper in race two while Nick Jones took the honours on both occasions in Club class.
It was very tight in the Dunlop Radical Biduro championship with John Hewitt leading Toby Newton by thirteen points yet that was reduced after Newton took third in race one with Hewitt sixth. He then repeated the feat in race two with Hewitt unable to get close enough, eventually finishing fifth, a result that meant he’d been leap frogged at the last by Newton. Meanwhile double celebration for Ross Allen, victor in both races
Radical SR8 Sports Car drivers Austin Reynolds and Richard Ince began the first of two Dunlop Radical Enduro championship races with a comfortable advantage and their crowning as 2007 champions was confirmed when the car of Derek Johnston and Stuart Moseley retired. They were the only crew who could stop Kinsella and Ince from taking the title so the destiny of the crown was decided.
Father and son duo Tim and Jacob Greaves, drove to the win in race one with Johnston and Moseley taking the compensation of a win in race two.
In the SR3 category, Anthony Dunn and Barry Gates were crowned as champions when closest challengers Phil Bailey and Bradley Ellis retired in race two with Paul Thomas and James Harrison bagging a win apiece.
The final Dunlop Sport MAXX Cup meeting of the year attracted its biggest field to date and brought an end to Martin Wallbank’s winning streak. He carried on his run of victories in race one but any hopes of finishing the year on the top step of the podium were thwarted when John Thorne stormed past him in race two to take victory.
In class C it was a double victory for Simon Shaw, who intends to move up to the more powerful class D category next year, the series becoming a fully-fledged championship in its own right. Meanwhile Paul Lund was also a double winner after Darelle Wilson was stripped of his win in race two for a technical infringement.
The PlayStation Ginetta Junior championship appears to be going the way of Nigel Moore, who took two third places in both of Sunday’s races but the biggest grin belonged to Kieran Vernon, who’d never finished on the top of the podium until today and he managed the feat twice. The series, which is contested by fourteen to sixteen year olds, has one more round to go and returns to Brands Hatch at the end of October.
Highlights of the weekend’s racing will be shown on Sky Sports and Motors TV
