“Wet race”. The two simple words barely do justice to the scene on race day in leafy south-west London. Aware of the forecast, many drivers had phoned for confirmation that Round 2 was indeed going ahead. Now they stood in the club house, race-suited, hands in pockets, staring gloomily out of the  window.

Outside, from dark skies a deluge of huge raindrops cascaded onto the decking, and water ran in sheets across the surface of the track. Overhead, another thunderclap boomed as a marshall reported on the water depth at Turn 1; “Four inches!”.

Turn One's sitting duck.

A text came through from a late-running Nick Pascoe, splashing along the roads leading to the circuit. It read simply,”?!”.

And yet….

Two hours later, acts of rain-soaked heroism were being applauded by grinning, dirt-streaked drivers. Huge numbers of places were made up or lost, and occasionally made up and  lost in the same race.

While the track remained soaked throughout race 1, in race 2 dry lines began to appear at a number of points, although the always-challenging turn 1 never lost its stream and associated water splash.

Through it all, bmi’s Keith Jarvis emerged triumphant, charging from 18th on the grid to 2nd place in race 1 and then winning race 2 after starting 7th .

Eschewing Daytona’s waterproofs, Keith stood out on the track in his distinctive blue overalls, the wet conditions apparently no hindrance.

Typical English summer...

Spectators might have been reminded of Senna’s first F1 victory at a drenched Estoril in ’85, or that first lap at Donington in the ’93 European GP. And to think that 90 minutes earlier, most had doubted there would be a race at all…

Second overall was BA’s Justin Undery, third place in race 1 being followed by a phenomenal drive to fourth from 23rd on the grid in race 2.

Third step on the podium went to bmi’s Richard Weber, Richard climbing 15 places to 9th in race 1 after starting last, and then topping his points up by finishing third in race 2.

Picking out especially noteworthy individual performances from this event is difficult. Pretty much everybody made up a significant number of places in one or other of the two races, and/or went significantly faster in race 2 than race 1.

Fastest driver in race 1 was BA’s Perry Musty, his 1:05.151 just shading Jarvis da Silva’s 1:05.188 with race 1 winner Mike Wood (easyJet) being the only other driver to go faster than 1m06s in race 1.

Charging hard in race 1 but so far unmentioned were Richard Booth (12 places gained), BA’s Nick Pascoe, Greg Montgomery and Tim Parrett (8 places each), along with Russ Wicks (bmi), Alex Sanderson (BA) and Chris Wade (easyJet) (each gaining 6 places).

Race 2’s slightly drier conditions saw significantly quicker laptimes, the day’s fastest driver being Alex Sanderson. He alone managed to get below 1m04s with a 1:03.940, but some familiar names were just behind him; Perry Musty, Virgin’s Julian Berry, Richard Weber and Keith Jarvis all dipped below 1m05s.

Elsewhere, there were signs of newcomers getting to grips with the situation; bmi’s Mark Fearns went 3.746s quicker in race 2 than he had in race 1, while easyJet trio Matt Bazeley, Marco Muntz and Carl Luebbert improved their fastest times by 2.788s, 1.349s and 0.497s respectively, Carl being the quickest of the bunch.

 
Road-holding optional.

Significant numbers of places were gained by Perry Musty (up from 22nd to 9th by the end) and XL’s Keith Hull (up to 8th from 20th on the grid).

Julian Berry moved up seven places, Simon Spiers and Russ Wicks both gained five and Virgin’s Paul Foster finished four spots ahead of where he started.Wet races, eh?

This was the first round for some of our quicker drivers, and some of them might have expected bigger hauls of points in normal conditions. But as we all know, when the rain starts to fall, anything can happen…

Round 3 is on Friday 24th August.

Round 2 Results Table below :-

easyJet