Ben Evans Racing

Over the past two weeks every pundit in the country has been talking about a game of two halves and I can only assume they’re referring to my weekend at Cadwell Park.

Saturday’s qualifying was disappointing as I was overdriving the car, trying too hard to set a competitive time. This left me 8th and 9th overall, or iin real money 1st and 2nd on the grid for the heats.

I made a good start to Saturday’s heat holding off Martyn Donn and John Hughes for the opening laps before I felt my engine gradually losing power when in 4th gear. I initially felt I could drive around this but with no luck and I had to pull out after 4 laps.

Amazingly due to the high attrition rate I was able to start the final from last place, and had a sensational opening to the race passing 10 or more cars climbing steadily through the field until I was struck by the same problem.

Luckily due to lightening striking twice Andy reckoned he had isolated the two or three things that could be causing the problem and sure enough the car was running fantastically from when we fired it up on Sunday morning.

Sunday’s heat saw me feeling cautious about the car’s ability to last race, which meant I spent more time defending than attacking. After spending the first few laps tucked up behind Steve Glasswell I grew sick of looking at his gearbox and dropped back allowing him to take the win …. or I lost his tow and fell into the clutches of Ryan Lindsay. After defending frantically for a few laps, Ryan found his way through only for his car to die on the following lap, allowing me a fairly easy cruise home to second.

For the final we made a few tweaks to the car which dramatically improved its performance. I made a good start from the line and cleared both Steve Glasswell and Martin Galpin leaving me to home in on Graham Kiddy. I found a way past Graham on the second lap after several enjoyable exchanges and set about closing the gap to Martin Farmer. Before I got the chance to make the move I narrowly avoided a spun Ian Buxton moving up another position.

Then the race was stopped following Martin Farmer’s huge shunt at the Mountain, capping what must have been a hugely frustrating weekend for the GAC driver, although it was an extremely promising display. Amazingly, despite bending his steering wheel in two Martin walked away, demonstrating the safety levels of Formula Vee cars.

The reformed grid dropped me back behind Graham and Ian, leaving me with some work to do. I got past Graham off the line, after his engine which looked sick on the warm-up lap decided to call it a day, but lost out to Martin Galpin into the first corner. This was rectified on the following lap, when after an enjoyable dice I slipstremed Martin into Coppice, he got me back into Park, only to run wide allowing me through.

This put me into 3rd, as on the previous lap, the Olivera’s had tangled into the Hall bends dropping them behind Martin and myself.

I held 3rd into the last lap, but Jake passed me on the way onto the back straight and the waved yellow’s at Park gave me no opportunity to attempt a repass. As soon as Jake was through Sam was all over me, but luckily there is no way to pass through the Woodland part of the circuit enabling me to hold on until the line, claiming 4th by 0.01s

So a mixed weekend, but one which could have been far worse.

A huge thanks to Andy Storer for his tireless efforts over the weekend, particularly on Saturday night and Sunday morning to get me out and competitive for Sunday’s races. Without him the weekend would have been over by lap 4 of Saturday’s heat.

Also, congratulations to Roger Bellingham for his excellent drives in both heats meaning that he automatically qualified for Saturday and Sunday’s finals.

Since the calendar was announced I’ve been looking forward to the Brands Hatch double header, my local track and the track where I have more experience than any other.

You can imagine my disappointment then as I pulled out of the pits to start qualifying to see plumes of white smoke in the mirror behind me. After completing my three laps to get into the race I retreated to the pits to see what the problem was.

Andy quickly diagnosed a broken stud head and managed to replace the broken parts within minutes. At this point I should say a huge thanks to Andy and Paul for the efforts in getting me onto the grid over the weekend. Without their help I’d have been heading home by lunchtime on Saturday.

All this drama meant I was 24th on the grid for Saturday’s heat and 28th for Sunday’s! A lot of work to do, and realistically I was aiming to get through the heats unscathed and pick up a low-teens final finish.

The first few laps of Saturday’s heat were scary, as some of the slower cars were not really aware I was there and coming through the field. Even so within 5 laps I was up in 14th place and closing on Bill Stenning when the red flags came out following Ryan Lindsay’s off. This was a stroke of luck for me as it meant I had another from further up the grid. In the 10 lap restart I carved through the pack to finish 5th and line up 14th for the final.

In the final I made a good start and was quickly on the back of a 10 car lead train. As that dispersed I found myself dicing with Steve Glasswell for what eventually became 7th. It was a great dice and although when I was following Steve I felt I was far quicker once I passed him I couldn’t pull away. This led to several laps of frantic defensive driving and all credit to Steve for keeping it clean and pushing me all the way. 0.04s on the line is close!! Obviously I was delighted with 7th but not over the moon at the prospect of doing it all again on the Sunday.

Sunday was even hotter than Saturday and with a box full of sponsors and my parents I knew I had to do something special. The first lap of the heat was it as I made up 9 places within the first lap including 7 by the time we got to Druids. The rest of the race was spent carving through the pack and without the aid of red flags I came home 7th, 0.09 behind David Lavington.

This put me 16th on the grid for the final where once again the aim was to slice through the field to a good finish. Luckily this job was made easier by Martin Galpin, John Hughes, Ian Buxton, Martin Farmer and the unlucky Simon Robinson falling off. Even so I spent most of the race in a cracking dice bottled up behind Jake Olivera, and with the retirements and a couple of well-timed overtaking moves I came home 7th, bottled up right behind Steve Glasswell, the sight of whose gearbox I am thoroughly sick of.

Given where I was on Saturday morning to come away from the weekend with two 7th places is a great result and leaves me very well placed for Cadwell next weekend, where hopefully I’ll pick up a podium or two.

Thanks again to Andy and Paul for all their efforts and also to Brooklands Executives and Nevard Roland for all their support over the weekend and throughout the season.