Calum Lockie and David Smith claimed a thrilling class victory in the second EERC Britcar race of the season at Brands Hatch on Saturday (3 April). With a tremendous fight-back drive, Calum took their BMW M3 to the class spoils after an hour and 40 minutes of flat-out racing on the daunting Grand Prix circuit at Brands.
Chances to race on the Brands Hatch GP circuit are rare, and even the British Touring Car, British GT and British F3 racers will not have the opportunity to sample Britain's best drivers' circuit this season. "It was absolutely brilliant to be racing on the GP circuit again," admitted Calum.
Testing on Friday was the first time that David had seen the GP circuit, so the team allowed him as much time as possible to adapt to the challenge. Then, for Saturday's qualifying session Calum went out first as changing weather conditions threatened to interrupt the session. "I only got one decent lap in as the rain came, but that was good enough for third in class and fifth overall at that point," said Calum. He then handed the car over to David for him to get some more laps under his belt, before Calum had another shot at a qualifying lap late in the session as the track dried once more.
"First there was oil down and then I got a clear lap. I was just going for a second lap when the yellow flags came out," he reported. However, than one good lap had put the M3 on the front row of the grid, fastest in class and second fastest overall.
After a team discussion, it was agreed that David would start the race. "That was in at the deep end with the car on the front row of the grid," said Calum. "But he kept it all together and that was crucial."
After an hour of the 2h40m race, David pitted to hand over to Calum. With a full fuel load, Calum now had 100 minutes of racing in which to fight his way up the order from 17th overall after the pit stop.
"I just got my head down and treated every lap as a qualifying lap. I just went for it!" With his scorching pace, and aided by one or two other cars going off or suffering mechanical failures, Calum was up to second in class with half an hour to run. The only car ahead of him was the M3 of Andy Allen/David Kempton, which was a lap ahead. Although Calum was regularly pulling three seconds a lap from the class leader, it seemed that he would still be around 10 seconds down at the flag.
"I had to really push hard through the traffic," said Calum as he passed car after car. "I just kept chasing and then suddenly I was catching them much faster and there they were, limping back to the pits with a puncture." With the class lead now secure, Calum eased his pace over the closing laps to make certain of a famous class victory. "It was a great result and David is justifiably over the moon!"
The result puts them in the lead of the class championship and only one point away from the overall championship lead. The next race is at Donington Park on 15 May.
"Thanks are due to James and John at EERC for giving us the chance to race on the Brands GP circuit," he said. "Also, my thanks go to Serco, Dunlop, Alcon and Memec for their support."
