The prospects looked good for yet another dry Historic FF2000 race, this time at Brands Hatch Indy circuit. It was to be the last race of the season, and a healthy field of twenty-one cars ventured out for qualifying. Unfortunately. There were a number of damaged cars by the end of the session. Alan Morgan, having a rare outing in Iain Rowley’s Delta tried to go too fast to soon, and spun at Surtees on his second lap. The cars immediately behind avoided the incident, but further back, Mark Pierce ran into the back of John Taylor, putting both cars out for the day, and causing a red flag.

At the resumption, the pace was set by Scott Temple, who finished the session with a 50.534 lap. Just behind him were Colin Wright, and Peter Denham, who put in his customary excellent Brands performance in front of his sponsors, www.1stopsnoring.co.uk, who were also sponsoring the race.

Completing an all-Reynard top four was Russell Love, continuing to find the speed we all know is there. There were mixed feelings about the next person on the list. James Ledamun was flying with the Crosslé, and should have been on the inside of row three. Sadly, he was not to make the race as a misunderstanding with John de Ritter at Clark curve saw both cars sustaining heavy damage against the tyre wall, and James suffering some painful cracked ribs.

Next to the vacant grid slot was Antony Raine, ahead of David Wild and a very much on-form Alan Gape. Behind Alan was Derek Smith, who is really getting to grips with his Delta. Jan Langdon’s trusty Reynard was next up, with another first-season racer, David Clark in his attractive Dulon next. The Reynards of Stuart Boyer and Adrian Desoutter were next, Stuart not happy with the handling of his car. John de Ritter would have been next, followed by Alan Morgan and the three Supervee cars. The Supervees are always very closely matched, and this week it was John Randall, followed by Martyn Donn and John Bowles, with less than a quarter of a second between them. Behind these three was Stuart Olley, suffering from poor handling due to the old tyres on his Delta.

The seventeen surviving cars lined up for the twenty minute race, and at the start, Scott Temple made no mistakes to take the lead. On the second lap, however, Stuart Boyer spun at Paddock Hill Bend, burying his car deep into the gravel. The safety car was deployed for a lap until it was decided that Stuarts car needed to be lifted, rather than dragged, out, so out came the red flag. Another car that failed to make the restart was Jon Randall’s Lola.

At the restart, Scott again took the lead, hotly pursued by Colin Wright. These two enjoyed a very competitive battle, which hovered around the 0.5s mark for a while, until Scott gradually opened the gap out to 1s. Colin was destined to suffer a rare retirement, however, when a rear damper broke at Surtees, giving him a very hairy moment sorting it all out. So, Scott ran out an untroubled winner, followed 7.9s later, by Peter Denham, again giving his sponsors something to cheer.

In Grand Prix style, there were few place changes further down the field. Russell Love, David Wild and Antony Raine circulated several seconds apart, with Derek Smith and Jan Langdon being the last unlapped runners. Alan Gape had endured a big moment at the exit of Clearways at the first start, and this dropped him down the order when the race was restarted. He retired on lap fourteen with a broken throttle cable. David Clark was the other retirement, on his second lap. The Supervee class was won by Martyn Donn, again lapping at a very similar pace to the other remaining runner, John Bowles.

All in all, not our finest race, but it was great to see Scott’s delight at winning. Let’s hope that the problems in qualifying were just a glitch. Stand by for news of an even better season next year!