donington park

Donington Park Formula Vee race report

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Jonathan Elsey photography 1

With Racing Team Vee taking the tough decision to totally strip and clean the engine, we risked running out of time to have the Primrose Hospice sponsored Sheane ready in time for the penultimate round of the Formula Vee championship.

With a new found fire for a final assault on the championship, the care was ready and James Cater raring to go, with new pistons and barrels in the engine just in time.

After a few steady lap in qualifying, several flags around the circuit meant James never got a chance for a flying lap, leaving him a disappointing 21st on the grid, but knowing he had a lot more pace.

This was proven in the race as he charged up to 13th place, aided by a slight change in set-up that had balanced the car beautifully. After dicing with several cars before pulling clear, James was chasing down Bill ‘Wom’ Garner for 2nd in class, but couldn’t quite draw him in before the chequered flag.

This left James in 14th place overall and picking up a trophy for 3rd in Class B, with Wom ahead and Andrew Cooper taking the win.

Graham Gant won overall, chased hard all the way by Daniel Hands and Craig Pollard.

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With full confidence he could go at least a second a lap faster in the final race, where he’d be starting 17th and first in class, a push rod tube sprung a massive oil leak in the holding area.

Despite being easy to fix, the timing meant there was no chance to make the start of the race, and James had to drop out, losing more championship points.

The second race was cut short with a red flag after only a few laps, leaving Daniel Hands as the winner from Craig Pollard and Paul Taylor. Class B was taken again by Cooper, with Wom and Vaughn Jones taking the final podium places.

From a 2018 season showing very promising driving, and the car being on the pace, the unlucky engine problems have devastated the run at the championship. This means the choice of running at Snetterton in October for a chance to take second in the Class B Championship, or ending the season now to fully prepare the car over Winter ready for 2019.

See the onboard video of Race 1 here:
https://youtu.be/RwJvsiajIHs

Donington Park Race Report

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James Cater went to Donington Park 3rd in the class B championship and 1 point behind Colin Gregory, with another two very fast drivers chasing to take the places away. With rear tyres that should long have been assigned to a skip and a slipping clutch, plus an engine badly in need of a rebuild, it was always going to be a challenge to hold 3rd – but why settle there? We wanted 2nd!

A safe qualifying somewhat appropriately left us on the grid 0.01 seconds behind Colin, and with yet another flying start by James Cater on a very slippery circuit, he used his head and did just enough to finish ahead of Colin to take 3rd in class in Race 1 – but with Andrew Cooper and Jack Wilkinson finishing ahead the gap was reduced for championship points.

Ian Jordan took the overall win, followed by Craig Pollard and championship leader Ben Miloudi – who still needed a few more points to wrap up the title.

Working out the standings for Class B showed James was now 1 point ahead of Colin, but on dropped scores he was actually still 1 point behind going into the final race of the year!

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Nailing the start again, James was ahead of Colin and even Andrew at one point, before Colin and Ross Price both passed James after a fluffed gearshift.

The safe plan to hold 3rd in the championship should have come into play as Colin pulled away with Ross, but James couldn’t live with that, digging deep and getting back into the battle with them, finally pulling a slight gap ahead on the last lap to take an ecstatic 3rd in class to give him 2nd in the championship!

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Sadly, the celebrations ended with a stewards enquiry with an unintentional and irrelevant overtake under a yellow flag in the early laps. The officials chose to apply an overly harsh and unfair penalty even after an appeal which dropped us down the order.

A sad way to tarnish a brilliant race, but we’re not letting the decision take it away – we went in to take 2nd in the championship and whatever the history books will say, we know we did it!

Well done to Jamie Harrison for winning the B Class championship, taking it easy as he only needed a single point from the weekend to wrap it up.

In the official race results Graham Gant took the overall win, with Adam Macaulay’s 2nd a great charge but not enough to stop Ben Miloudi taking the championship win for 2017. Martin Farmer took the final podium spot. In Class B Jack Wilkinson and Andrew Cooper took the top spots again, and Ross Price gets 3rd after my penalty.

Massive thanks to everyone who’s helped out through the year, and to all the drivers and crews who make Formula Vee so wonderful, to the marshals and the photographers – and of course to sponsors JooVuu and Primrose Hospice and to Bromsgrove Standard for their exposure.

We still appreciate every single day how privileged we are to be able to race amongst such talent – huge thank you to you all!

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