2011 Legends Cars Championship - Rounds 7 & 8, Croft

28^th/29^th May 2011

We return to Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire for this weekend’s 7^th & 8^th rounds of The 2011 National Legends Cars Championship.

 Croft is a 2.127 mile circuit based on the lands of a World War 2 airfield, but has long since moved on from being a basic airfield circuit. The circuit holds meetings of the British Touring Car Championship & British Superbike Championship.

Stephen is still leading the championship, but we do not know by how many points as the results for Round 6 at Silverstone were held by the Clerk of the Course and his fellow stewards.

Round 7 Warm-Up
It was a dry warm-up that was just 3 laps long due to 2 red flags, Stephen made the best of his 3 laps setting 2^nd fastest time on his 3^rd lap, Simon was taking it gently as he was loosening a new engine, he managed 8^th fastest even though he was going steady.

Stephen All Strapped In And Ready To Go …

Round 7 Heat 1
Simon was not about to let his mid pack start keep him away from the front, and neither was Stephen. Both drivers made good clean starts and by the half way point in the race were running in the top 5, Stephen was battling at the front with #32 Morton in front & #4 Mickel in close attendance behind. Simon was also having his own battle with the #4 car driven by Brace Jnr. They both stuck at the task and were rewarded with 2^nd & 3^rd places, Stepehen finished 2^nd with Simon just 0.510 of a second behind him.

Round 7 Heat 2
Both drivers again made excellent starts & by the end of the first lap were running in the front pack. It was then a hectic couple of laps by the end of which saw Stephen in 1^st & Simon in 2^nd, that is where they were when a bad accident involving cars #8 & #9, on the exit of Hawthorn just before Chicane took place and resulted in the safety car coming onto the track, where it stayed for the final 2 laps of the race, giving ‘The Karcher Boys’ 1^st & 2^nd.

Round 7 Final
Once again Stephen was going have his work cut out in this one as he was starting from the back of the grid, the price you pay for 2 good results in Legends. For Simon the task was made only slightly easier as he was starting immediately in front of Stephen, both of them got away cleanly and were on the pace straight away making good progress through the field. For both Simon & Stephen it was a case of using all eight laps to get through the field, Stephen only needed 6 laps before he had taken the lead away from 2010 Legends champion #1 Davey, setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 3, despite several attempts from the #1 car, Stephen finished in 1^st place. Simon finished in 4^th place, rounding off a good day for The Handy Motorsport Team, with a ‘Karcher Boy’s” 1^st & 2^nd overall on the day, a good clean result you could say.

Round 8 Heat 1
Once again there was no warm-up before today’s racing due to local planning restrictions, so it was straight into the racing. As is normal with Legends it was action packed from start to finish, Stephen’s 2^nd row start allowed him to take the lead by the 2^nd corner, a position that he held almost race long, he lost the lead momentarily just a couple of times as he was being pushed hard by the father & son team of Braces. Simon had made great progress through the field and was challenging for 3^rd place, when the #16 car of Richard Pocklington moved across on Simon as he was overtaking him in The Complex, the impact of the bump damaged the #11 car’s steering, meaning Simon spent the rest of the race trying to defend his positions and it was a case of getting it back to capture as many point as possible, whilst for Stephen another 1^st place was his reward. 

The Cars Have New Livery For The 2011 Championship …

Round 8 Heat 2
It’s getting a bit hairy out on track, with a little too much contact between the cars. Simon witnessed that first hand when his race was ended in a 3 car pile up between #1 Davey, #33 Bell & himself. Stephen was having to work hard to get through the pack, he stuck at it and was rewarded with a well deserved & hard earned 4^th place.

Round 8 Final
It was a short appearance in the final for Simon who retired from the race on lap 4, not happy with the cars set-up following it’s rebuild after the previous race. It was not too good for Stephen either, he had a coming together with another car during the first lap which left him unable to use full steering lock, undeterred he carried on for an 18^th place, not good but those points could be all important at the end of the season. The weekend was not a disaster for Stephen who increased his lead in the championship. 

 Please keep up to date with the team’s progress in The 2011 National Legends Cars Championship on Motors TV,and at http://www.legendsracinguk.com/ukhome.html