Horsman reigns

Brands Hatch - 4 October 1999

The 1999 Morgan Motor Co. Challenge Race Series drew to its controversial conclusion at Brands Hatch on the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of October. With the absence of Peter Garland who had been unexpectedly detained when his boss sent him on a last minute business trip to the States, it was Keith Ahlers who, on a bright and dry Saturday, grabbed pole by over half a second from Malcolm Paul. Championship leader Rick Lloyd took 3rd place from where he looked well placed to win class B and seal his 2nd consecutive championship.

At 2.30 on race day the temperature dropped suddenly as thick clouds gagged the autumn sun. From the gloom emerged 23 Morgans lunging at Paddock Hill bend and the roller-coaster ride to Druids which is where, for Rick Lloyd at least, it all went wrong. Since Peter Horsman had had a point for fastest lap cruelly ripped away from him by part-timer Jack Bellinger, Lloyd had managed to keep himself that single point ahead even when he’d had to rent-a-wreck at Oulton Park. But now at the most critical moment in his season his luck changed as quickly as the weather.

In what was widely seen to be an extraordinarily over ambitious manoeuvre, it was Chris Springall who, having already made contact with Malcolm Paul at the start, charged up the inside of Lloyd into Druids. With no hope of making the corner, contact was inevitable and while Springall used Lloyd’s car to get round the corner, Lloyd knew his championship was in tatters pounding his steering wheel as the entire field passed the champion stranded in the gravel trap.

Peter Horsman thought all his Christmas’s had come at once when he passed Lloyd. Horsman had been lucky to make the start after realising he had no fuel and (as with all services at Brands Hatch) having found the garage closed, but he managed to borrow some four star from Rick Bourne. After making a cracking start passing both Simon Orebi-Gann and Leigh Sebba he concentrated on making it to the finish and getting the 2 points he now needed to become the ‘reluctant’ champion. Horsman finished an ironic 13th and was the bridesmaid no longer. He had wanted to beat Lloyd in a straight fight but you take it what ever way it comes.

Keith Ahlers won the race, his first championship victory and although he was never headed, Malcolm Paul made sure he had to work hard for it until he lost ground with a brief excursion onto the grass. After his topsy-turvy season, Ahlers was happy that it had all come good in the end and was perhaps unsurprisingly filled with hope for next season.

One of the two great battles occurred between James Paterson and Grahame White for 3rd position. White, a driving instructor at Brands has (as I may have mentioned in a past report) completed over 1000 tours of the circuit and so had absolutely no excuse for failing to beat Paterson in qualifying. They both made good starts and avoided the destruction derby at Druids on the first lap and from then on they were never separated by more than a second as White chased Paterson probing for his ‘weak point’. By the penultimate lap, as the rain fell, he thought he’d found it and as Paterson ran a fraction wide from his defensive line through Clearways, White pounced and held Paterson off to the flag.

Next along the road was Chris Springall then Mark Baldwin who, on his way to 6th had got by Chris Acklam at Paddock and Adrian Van de Kroft when Kroft lost it coming out of Druids for the 8th time and slammed into the Armco causing substantial damage to his silver +8 which he was devastated about.

In 7th place came oil trader Paul Burry who, balked by the melee at Druids, was passed by Baldwin round the outside and then by Sumner down into Graham Hill Bend. Burry got Sumner back into Druids and then Acklam (who has put his poor season down to age!) through Clearways and with 3 laps to go managed to defend the position from the attentions of both Acklam and Sumner until the flag.

Alone and sad in 10th was Simon Orebi-Gann who had crashed at Druids earlier in the day. 17 seconds of tarmac later came Phil McKelvey resplendent (or so he thought) in his cravat. He had made a bad start but at the close of his first season of Morgan racing was pleased to have ‘toughed’ it out past Horsman and Daniel Ward and to be racing at last and not for last. Ward, in only his 2nd championship appearance, had raised his game after Lloyd had shown him what the car was capable of during the previous day’s endurance race.

Champion Horsman was followed home by seamstress Mary Lindsay who had stitched up both Kelvin Laidlaw and Leigh Sebba when they were held up at Druids and she spent the duration of the race aware that if she put a wheel wrong the ‘canny’ Sebba would have got her.

Behind Laidlaw was another great battle. Doug Taylerson gave up his ride to his son Matt, a Formula Ford racer with 10 years of racing experience, none of them in a Morgan. Axle-tramping off the line, Taylerson lost a place to David James but by the end of lap 3 had passed him and Peter Sargeant, from where he launched an assault on John Clarke passing him spectacularly through Paddock Hill Bend on lap 5. Clarke tracked Taylerson for 2 laps and got by him through Graham Hill Bend using a technique he had tried out earlier on Sargeant. After that, as he so eloquently put it, he had a ‘bollocks of a job’ keeping him behind for the final 6 laps but ‘had a great time.. about time somebody in a +4 gave me a race’ he said.

Peter Sargeant had a great time passing virtually stationary cars at Druids but one by one they all got back past him which didn’t worry The Sarge who wanted to win the war and not the battle. David James got the better of Taylerson off the line but on lap 2, under pressure, gave it all away as he whirled out at Druids. Stephen Wheatley couldn’t believe his luck as he managed to avoid the spinning car but James quickly recovered and Wheatley had to fend him off until, on lap 6 he steamed past Wheatley at Paddock Hill Bend.

So another season of the Morgan Championship has come to an end. I have had a great time reporting for the tyrant editor of MogSport and enjoyed getting to know the actors drivers and supporting cast involved in the race series. Many thanks to all of you who have tolerated me and my tape machine. I am sure I have upset enough of you and to those whom I haven’t, I apologise (apart that is from Cobra-driving ****ers). Next year this position is vacant and I hope, for my Mother’s sake, that someone will emerge from the shadows to take up the baton (and English). Yours anonymously

Jonathan Suffolk