The Grid.co.uk    the national & club motor racing website - est1998          

  ^News

.

continued from news:

BRANDS HATCH THE VENUE FOR CATERHAM'S CURTAIN-CLOSER

A field of 120 Caterhams is expected at Brands Hatch next week (17/18 Oct) for an eight-race season-closing celebration of the marque and its new champions.

Recently crowned Avon Tyres Caterham Superlight Challenge Champion David Mayes will lead the new title-holders into battle as he bids to end his remarkable maiden season of Caterham racing on an even higher note. The 20-year-old claimed his seventh and eighth wins of the season at Donington Park in August to secure the championship title and few would bet against further wins for Staplehurst-based Mayes at his home circuit. One of his objectives is, with the help of his team-mate Will Mitcham, to secure the Matt Bettley Memorial Team Award for Taylor's Foundry Motor Sport.

There are those who would wish to spoil David's end-of-year celebration, however, chief among them probably Rachel Green, who won her first UK Superlight race - and the first ever for a woman - at Brands last October, when she pipped Glen Denny to the chequer by a thousandth of a second. Rachel's season has been blighted by misfortune and she's overdue a repeat win.

The only driver so far to beat Mayes to the line is Ollie Jackson. He did so in the rain at Castle Combe, when Mayes went off, and again in the damp at Snetterton after David made an error. Inclement weather next week might perhaps favour Piranha Racing's Jackson.

The other podium finishers in the 2008 Superlight Challenge - all of whom ought to be a factor at Brands Hatch - include Pat Gormley and Chris Cappuccini, Mitcham, Peter Ratcliff and the impressive 17-year-old Dan Denis, who bagged second- and third-place finishes last time out. Mark Fullalove, the former BTCC racer, has been banging on the door of a podium finish all season.

Caterham's 'starter' series, the Daily Telegraph-backed Academy, was concluded last month - Trevor Fowell and Mark Fulford are the champions in their respective groups - and the Brands Hatch Academy races are a special non-championship celebration of the competitors' maiden seasons. Both Fowell and Fulford return for a swansong along with other event winners from the season - Gordon Sawyer, Kai Lo, Robert Smith and Rich White, any one of whom could emerge on top.

In the Roadsport A section of the Motorsport News Caterham Roadsport Challenge, the action has been exceptionally close all season, with no fewer than seven different race winners - Jon Walker, Philip Broad, Gary Halcrow, Dax Humberstone, David Pearce, James Sharrock and Lewis Hopkins. Through all this competition came Cambridgeshire 23-year-old Broad to clinch the championship at Donington Park in August.

Broad returns to try to cap his championship victory with further race wins to add to those he scored at Croft, Cadwell Park, Oulton Park and Silverstone - five so far - while Sharrock, Hopkins and Walker will try to determine the outcome of second and third in the championship. Twenty-four points separate them, with Fauldsport team-mates Sharrock and Hopkins the men in strong recent form.

Among the local heroes in the bumper Roadsport A field are East Grinstead's Stephen Mansell, Bromley's Robert Springate and Crowborough-based Toby Dicker, whose The Chapel-based Roadsport showed strong pace at Donington on its way to the podium.

The Roadsport B brigade have provided a stirring spectacle all season. London-based Franco-Italian Raphael Fiorentino sewed up the title with a brace of podium finishes at Donington Park, which came on top of four race victories during the year. But there's still a tussle on for second and third in the championship, with two-time winner Amit Patel carrying a 20-point advantage to Brands over Dean Wilkin, and with Mark Blackburn, Mark Figes and Paul Fleury close behind. Chislehurst-based Figes is the driver with the winning experience, having triumphed three times already. Other race winners in the field include Magd Mohaffel, Rob Vissers and Anthony Sidney-Woollett. Tunbridge Wells driver Andrew Atherton will be in action also.

The Brands Hatch action starts early Friday, with qualifying for all championships. The two Academy races take place Friday afternoon, with the Roadsport and Superlight brigades racing on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk