The mid-morning Practice session was even less fun, and more like practising for a surf competition than Time Attack. Ron was competing in the OHW category – One Hit Wonders, for drivers competing ad hoc in rounds through the year rather than full-season. Seven drivers posted times under a minute, with Ron Kiddell’s R32 hitting 133mph across the start-line. Over in Pro it looked like things might get a bit better, track-wise, for their Warm-Up: perhaps the tarmac would dry towards the end of the session? Marcus Webster of Midlands Performance topped the times in his Skyline R32 GT-R with a best time of 56.1s, with his team-mate Walter Morris’ R32 back in ninth. Like a lot of competitors in Club, Antonio rapidly progressed from watching Time Attack to competing – he’s now been taking part for three seasons. ![]() The 155’s two-litre Twin Spark has a turbo bolted on, making over 360bhp. There is a corner of an English field that is forever Milanese… His home-town is listed as Wolverhampton, Italy. …compete against the old school, like this Porsche 964 and a pair of Ford Sierra Cosworths.Īntonio Giovanazzo – an appropriately racy and perfectly Italian name given his car – is a stalwart of the series: his self-built Alfa Romeo 155 might usually be following than leading, but the car is a joy and his enthusiasm is unbound. Modern kit like the KTM X-Bow, R35 GT-R, MINI Coopers and Impreza WRX STi… Cars old and new compete side by side in the four sub-categories. There’s a huge variety of machinery out in the Club class. Kemp was two and half seconds clear of Bo Nielsen’s 360hp Astra VXR, which completed five laps. Kemp was never fastest through the speed traps, proving that the corners are just as important as the velocity down the straights – something he amply demonstrated by setting the fastest individual times in all three sectors. Marc Kemp in the #67 Mitsubishi Evo 8 260 set out his stall early, with a 1:00.018s one of a string of tours close to the minute mark over 11 timed laps. The morning Warm-Up session for the Club Class took place on a wet and greasy track, meaning that putting in consistent times was difficult if not impossible. However, global weather weirding would throw a spanner in the works: the British ‘Summer’ was up to its old tricks, providing showers on a regular basis, interspersed with hot sun on a rinse and repeat cycle.Īt Brands there are few easy corners: everywhere needs commitment, as there’s only one truly straight piece of track – and even that’s short.įrom the drop-off-the-face-of-the-earth of Paddock to the slow, ever-turning Druids hairpin at the top of the hill, the flat-out left-right kink of Surtees and then the undulating long right of Clark, there’s a lot of variation packed in for such a short track. ![]() The previous Pro record of 48.663s was by Steve Gugliemi in his Lotus Elise back in June ’09 – that would be the target for the day. ![]() The series would be tackling the famous Brands Hatch Indy circuit: a 2km (1.2 mile) speed-bowl in Kent in the south of England. Chasing those tenths of seconds would be even made even worse by the unpredictable weather that had hit the UK.Ī special appearance from particularly effective Time Attackers had been organised: a pair of Formula 1 cars would also be braving the conditions, putting in demonstration runs in-between sessions. The sessions for the day would be short, sharp shocks: 15-20 minutes per class, where the drivers have little time to get their eye in. Focussed on the pure pursuit of lap-times, the cars are brutally fast: a frenzy of flaming exhausts, whooshing turbos and popping exhausts. The UK Time Attack series has just held its third round of 2012 at the Brands Hatch track, unleashing several tens of thousands of tuned-up horsepower around the legendary British circuit.
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