Ben Evans Racing

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.