Round Four Porsche Club Speed Championship

Round 4
 
Sunshine, Bentleys, a Goat (!) and lots of Porsche! 
 
The fourth round of the Porsche Club Speed Championship with NINEMEISTER was to be a sprint around the Mallory park race circuit near Hinckley, Leicestershire Oh, and the site of the Battle of Bosworth! 
 
Organised the Bentley Driver Club, the event welcomed 18 Porsche cars, plus a range of lovely old Bentleys and other makes all looking forward to a fun day of driving the loop around the two small lakes at the centre of the circuit.
 
One of those lakes had a small island on which was held a goat, presumably a greener version of a lawn mower for those days when the track isn't in use!
 
Practice
The drivers had expected two timed practice runs but timing equipment issues caused some delays and, in the end, a single practice was all that could be managed if at least two scoring timed runs were to be completed by the end of the day.
 
In P1 our two runners were Wayne Helme and Justin Dooling. Wayne and the 718GT4 completed practice a little over a second quicker than Justin in the GT3.
 
P2 was to be a busier class with seven cars and an interesting mix of models and specifications.  David Dyson was for once not the quickest car out of the box. That title went to John Yates, the IROC Replica 911 snarling at the spectators as it recorded a rapid practice time of 59.10 seconds. David in the 991.2t was a little slower than George Harris who went into the scoring runs sitting in second place in P2, his Cayman R delivering a quick 61.66 second practice.
 
Our P3 class was similar in size and all expected Jon Baldock (Boxster) who is very much on form so far this year to lead the way. He didn't disappoint putting in a neat 62 48 second practice time to lead the class by over three seconds.
 
We had no Stephen Jory running at Mallory and it was left to Jake Cartwright and Thomas Robinson to do the job of challenging the always swift Martin. Leach in his 911E. Jake (Boxster) came close and ended practice just over half a second slower than Martin who drove the class 911 to a class leading 64.97 second time.
 


Scoring Timed Runs
In P4 Thomas Robinson drove his Classic road-going Carrera 3.0 911 to a best of 67.73 seconds ending the day third in the class. Stepping up to take the fight to Martin Leach, Jake Cartwright was quicker in the first scoring run. Martin just pipped Jake's first scoring run time with his second effort but, with Jake the next car out he needed him to fail to improve.  In the end the opposite happened, and Jake found around half a second to take a much-deserved P4 class win with a time of 62.69 seconds in the Boxster.
 
Jon Baldock never looked like he was going to be bettered, his Boxster producing two scoring runs around two seconds quicker than the rest of the field taking the P3 class win from a brilliant drive by Sid Malik who grabbed second place in his road going 996 with a 63.18 second time. Hot on his heels was Eoin Card, his Cayman just 0.05 seconds behind to take third place in the class.
 
George Harris improved by around a second in each his scoring runs, but even that wasn't enough to catch John Yates, the 911 nibbling just a couple of hundredths off his practice time. A small gain but the time was still three tenths of a second quicker than George's best. You might have imagined that would put George into a solid second place, but David Dyson found his best form on his second scoring run to wrestle second place in P2 from George by just 0.24 seconds. Did I mention how close the times are becoming?!!
 
Justin Dooling was doing a great job driving a PDK equipped P1 GT3. PDK gearbox use does attract a small percentage penalty applied to times achieved. That correction was enough to drop him to second place in the P1 class after Wayne Helme took his road 718GT4 to a very decent best of 62.02 seconds on the final scoring timed run, that class win puts Wayne in the lead of the P1 class after 4 Championship rounds.
 
The leading cars in all the classes at this point in the Championship after four rounds are as follows;
 
P1 Wayne Helme   76.80
P2 David Dyson     81.42 
P3 Jon Baldock      81.30
P4 Martin Leach     79.47
 
With four from fourteen rounds completed already the overall and class contests are all warming up nicely. We head to a double Hillclimb Weekend at the glorious Loton Park near Shrewsbury on 16th & 17th May. With over 20 Porsche cars expected it should be exciting, see you there?
 
Simon Wilson
Championship Coordinator
Porsche Club GB
simonwilson@porscheclubgb.com