2009 Sports/GT Championship

Sports/GT

The final and fastest class of the event was sports/GT on Monday. Concourse was won by Paul Harwood with his BSP Audi (above). All four of this years concourse winners made a final, obviously a nicely painted body is no performance disadvantage!

This year's format put everybody in 8 x 3 minute segmented heats to qualify for the finals. The heats were seeded on the qualifying order / results from the previous two classes.

Noddy Lockey won the F heat with 215, just 3 laps up on Trevor Crout. In the E heat Rob Harris made it the second Dowty win of the day, with 225, while Wink Hackman took second just a lap up on Noddy's time. Paul Austin won the D heat on 236, 5 laps up on Franz with third place Neil Grogan also ahead of Rob's time. Dave Harvey was the C heat winner on 245 ahead of Ian Fisher. The B heat was won by Graham Woodward on 256 which set a real target for the A heat runners to aim at. It also completed the main grade driver's runs, with Steve Sargent fastest main grade driver on 247 which was fifth fastest so far and David Sargent 9th and out of teh main grade final unless his dad made the overall final. In fact the A heat wasn't as quick as might be expected, Paul Shepherd was a few feet short of Woody's time, while Paul Harwood and Ross Grogan were the only others from the A heat to make the final. It was no surprise to see multiple champions James Cleave, Brian Saunders and Charlie Gooding seeded in the A heat, but they all had maladies that kept them just outside the top 10 overall.

So to the main grade final. With Steve Sargent in the overall final, Dave Harvey was top qualifier for the main grade final. The 8 x 3 minute segmented format means there is no real disadvantage to qualifying last, although there is the psychological disadvantage of having the starting lane nobody else wanted. Many drivers prefer to get the slower lanes out of the way early and finish on a couple of quick lanes.

Pat Skene won the first segment by a 3 lap margin, lapping consistently quicker than the rest of the field. Was that quick enough to win? We'll never know because just 7 laps into the second segment Pat's car broke while a long pit stop for Neil Grogan relegated Scottish hopes to the tail of the field early in the race.. That left David Sargent, Paul Austin, Dave Harvey and Franz all on the same lap, it was David Sargent who proved quickest, taking a 2 lap lead from Paul and Franz at quarter distance, extending his lead to 3 laps in the 3rd segment. Paul closed on the leader while David was on red, but once back on a central lane David set the only 32 lap segment of the race to return the gap to 3 laps. David set fastest lap of the race and extended his advantage to 6 laps while Paul had the pleasure of red lane, but was that enough advantage to take to a finish on purple and black? Well Paul was catching the leader during the last quarter of the race, but not quickly enough, so it was David Sargent who became Main Grade Champion 2 laps up on Paul, while Gibbo took third ahead of Rob Harris and the delayed Dave Harvey. Racing is full of ifs - if Steve hadn't made the overall final, if Pat's car hadn't failed, if it hadn't been a segmented race the lower qualifying times would have earned a slow lane ..... but having said all that leading for over 80% of the race and setting both fastest segment and fastest lap is a pretty impressive way to win!

David's winning car

	David Sargent	Paul Austin	Keith Gibson	Rob Harris	Dave Harvey	Franz	Neil Grogan	Pat Skene
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
	Yellow	Purple	Orange	Black	White	Red	Blue	Green
seg 1	28	28	25	26	28	28	24	31
	Orange	Black	White	Yellow	Red	Green	Purple	Blue
seg 2	30	28	29	26	24	28	13	7
total	58	56	54	52	52	56	37	38
	White	Yellow	Red	Orange	Green	Blue	Black	Purple
seg 3	30	29	29	31	4	26	21	0
total	88	85	83	83	56	82	58	38
	Red	Orange	Green	White	Blue	Purple	Yellow	Black
seg 4	28	30	29	29	29	28	27	0
total	116	115	112	112	85	110	85	38
	Green	White	Blue	Red	Purple	Black	Orange	Yellow
seg 5	32	30	31	27	28	17	25	0
total	148	145	143	139	113	127	110	38
	Blue	Red	Purple	Green	Black	Yellow	White	Orange
seg 6	31	28	29	27	29	29	23	0
total	179	173	172	166	142	156	133	38
	Purple	Green	Black	Blue	Yellow	Orange	Red	White
seg 7	28	30	26	23	30	21	24	0
total	207	203	198	189	172	177	157	38
	Black	Blue	Yellow	Purple	Orange	White	Green	Red
seg 8	27	29	29	28	27	20	24	0
total	234	232	227	217	199	197	181	38
fastest lap	5.433	5.602	5.516	5.514	5.478	5.794	5.927	5.482
	David Sargent	Paul Austin	Keith Gibson	Rob Harris	Dave Harvey	Franz	Neil Grogan	Pat Skene

The 2009 Championship Final

The tally of former Nationals winners was just 3, the lowest of the weekend so perhaps a new name would be joining them. The Scottish challenge started out even more strongly than in main grade with Ross Grogan and Alan Lucas 1-2 at the end of the first segment. Quite unlike main grade, that's how it stayed at the end of the second segment. However in segment 3, top qualifier Woody had got red and white behind him and took the lead while the Scotsman were on the two outside lanes, indeed Alan was slowed by black sufficiently for Paul Harwood, Steve Sargent and Paul Shepherd to get just ahead of him. At half distance Ross was back on a good lane and back in the lead, Alan was back up to third and the Harwoods were 4-5-6. Woody moved to purple in segment 5, none the less he joined Ross on the lead lap. He wasn't able to repeat that trick on black lane, so Ross was a lap up at three quarter distance, with Alan still very much in the race also just a lap off the lead. Ross then had his turn on black, and Woody took a small lead into the final segment, with Alan still only a lap behind with Greg Harwood and Paul Shepherd 4th and fifth. Orange might be the best lane, Woody certainly made good use of it to set fastest segment and fastest lap in the final segment to win one of the closest fought national finals. Ecurie Barnton had two drivers in the top 3; I'm not sure if Ross's car was fading or if he was pushing too hard to catch Woody, either way Alan took second ahead of Ross just 12 laps from home. Steve Sargent moved up to 4th in the final segment despite finishing on black. Congratulations to the Woodward family on winning the sports title two years running, this time with Woodward senior.

	Graham Woodward	Alan Lucas	Ross Grogan	Steve Sargent	Paul Shepherd	Greg Harwood	Mark Harwood	Paul Harwood
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
	White	Blue	Orange	Yellow	Red	Black	Purple	Green
seg 1	32	32	33	31	29	28	30	31
	Red	Purple	White	Orange	Green	Yellow	Black	Blue
seg 2	30	31	31	31	31	32	31	31
total	62	63	64	62	60	60	61	62
	Green	Black	Red	White	Blue	Orange	Yellow	Purple
seg 3	33	30	31	31	33	32	31	32
total	95	93	95	93	93	92	92	94
	Blue	Yellow	Green	Red	Purple	White	Orange	Black
seg 4	32	32	33	28	30	32	32	30
total	127	125	128	121	123	124	124	124
	Purple	Orange	Blue	Green	Black	Red	White	Yellow
seg 5	30	31	29	31	31	29	30	30
total	157	156	157	152	154	153	154	154
	Black	White	Purple	Blue	Yellow	Green	Red	Orange
seg 6	31	32	32	34	31	31	30	29
total	188	188	189	186	185	184	184	183
	Yellow	Red	Black	Purple	Orange	Blue	Green	White
seg 7	32	31	31	29	31	33	24	21
total	220	219	220	215	216	217	208	204
	Orange	Green	Yellow	Black	White	Purple	Blue	Red
seg 8	34	33	31	30	28	26	32	28
total	254	252	251	245	244	243	240	232
fastest lap	5.080	5.236	5.110	5.174	5.233	5.257	5.338	5.312
	Graham Woodward	Alan Lucas	Ross Grogan	Steve Sargent	Paul Shepherd	Greg Harwood	Mark Harwood	Paul Harwood

Woodward family portrait - the 2008 Champion presents the 2009 Champion with the trophy and BSCRA secretary Chris Frost presents David Sargent with the main grade trophy

SPORTS/GT results
Final position	Driver	heat	Qualifying laps	main grade	Final laps
1	Graham Woodward	B	256.17		254
2	Alan Lucas	B	254.16		252
3	Ross Grogan	A	246.93		251
4	Steve Sargent	B	247.73	m	245
5	Paul Shepherd	A	256.05		244
6	Greg Harwood	B	249.89		243
7	Mark Harwood	B	254.41		240
8	Paul Harwood	A	249.24		232
9	Dave Harvey	C	245.25	m
10	Ian Fisher	C	241.89
11	James Cleave	A	240.23
12	Brian Saunders	A	239.58
13	Charlie Gooding	A	237.24
14	Paul Austin	D	236.87	m
15	Keith Gibson	B	234.41	m
16	Chris Thomas	B	233.49
17	Franz Barillaro	D	231.17	m
18	Neil Grogan	D	228.17	m
19	Rob Harris	E	225.25	m
20	Pat Skene	D	225.24	m
21	David Sargent	C	223.35	m
22	Ian Barker	C	221.51	m
23	Wink Hackman	E	216.76	m
24	Noddy Lockey	F	215.70	m
25	Trevor Crout	F	212.58	m
26	Stephen Siddall	C	212.44	m
27	David Farrow	E	211.40	m
28	Keith Charles	F	211.00	m
29	Matthew Siddall	E	210.81	m
30	Sandy Parker	D	210.18	m
31	James Davey	F	209.57	m
32	Chris Green	E	206.04	m
33	Dave Coward	C	205.57
34	Ben Woodward	D	201.45
35	Chris Cowan	F	194.93	m
36	Martin Ellis	C	194.00
37	Kev Gray	F	187.53	m
38	Tony Ryder	F	169.00	m
39	Phil Hemsley	E	130.00	m
40	Graeme Stephenson	A	117.00
41	Vince Lee	D	94.00
42=	Chris Frost	E	46.00	m
42=	Mike Gibbon	F	46.00	m