Highs and Lows at Castle Combe for the Pink Panther

Sarah Bennett-Baggs went fully prepared with her pink Porsche to Mondays Castle Combe event after a successful test day where her pink 911 3.0SC was fully back on song.

The results were confirmed in qualifying when she put in a fantastic time 0.5s quicker than last years pole time! However it wasn’t enough as her much more experienced rival Jeremy Clark, put in an even quicker time to get pole position. So it was 2nd in Class on the grid for Sarah and over 2s clear of her next rival in 3rd.

The tightly packed grid of the Wiltshire circuit was always going to be challenging as sprint races here are all about the start. Sarah had a door banging start to the first race, but kept her nerve and came out of the first few corners on Jeremy’s tail, chasing him hard to the end of the race to finish a close second and half a lap clear of the next competitor in 3rd.

The 2nd race of the day was not to be so successful. Another brilliant start by Sarah holding her own in the bun fight to get down to quarry corner. She turned into Quarry alongside her rival Jeremy Clark, but an incident was unfolding up ahead and the 911 of Ian Oliver got tapped into a spin in front of Jeremy. He braked to avoid the accident and Sarah’s path was clear to go, but as Sarah pushed hard to pass, the spinning car came across her path and she T-boned the car at full throttle. With such a high speed accident the race was red flagged to recover the two cars. Both Ian and Sarah were unhurt in the incident which resulted in both cars being badly damaged.

Hope’s to fix the pink panther look rather doubtful in just three weeks before the next rounds at Silverstone, but Sarah is more hopeful of returning to finish the series in a borrowed car of similar type.

Despite this, Sarah is still lying 2nd in the Class Championship standings and is down but not out!

The final rounds of the Porsche Club Championship are at Silverstone GP circuit and Spa Francorchamps

A Difficult Silverstone Weekend for Sarah Franklin

As ever in motorsport, you have to take the rough with the smooth and Sarah Franklin had to take the rough during a difficult time at Silverstone on the weekend of the 16th & 17th August.

Sarah had just two 30 minute sessions on the Friday to reacquaint herself with the long 2.2 mile Silverstone International Circuit and also to get used to a car with new control tyres and different brakes to those she has been running in the Ginetta Club Championship.

‘It was like driving a completely different car,’ Sarah said, ‘I was really struggling to get any heat in the tyres and was feeling like I was constantly going to fall off the circuit!’

The forecast for the weekend wasn’t good so Sarah invested in a set of wet tyres which obviously then meant that it didn’t rain once during the Ginetta sessions!!!!

With only 15 minutes to qualify and with just 5.1 seconds separating the whole field, Sarah qualified in an extremely disappointing 26th place. The good news of the day was that Sarah’s car won the ‘Best Presented’ Ginetta of the weekend!

Race 1 got off to a hectic start, with a spinner on the first corner causing chaos! Sarah managed to pick her way through and avoid the carnage and push on until the inevitable safety car came out. By this time, Sarah was up into 21st with Steve Williams in front of her. Sarah tried to stay with Williams during the re-start but he got a better run out of the last corner and managed to get into Copse ahead of her. Sarah then pushed on, avoiding other people’s incidents, to bring the car home in 16th position.

Race 2 saw Sarah ready to really push. She got a good start and was several places up by the right hand turn at Becketts on lap 1 when she was tapped at the rear. Whilst this wasn’t a huge nudge, it was sufficient and in such a way that her rear hub was broken meaning she had to retire the car.

‘I was looking forward to a good race and am gutted that this is the way it has ended – and so early on in the race. I really need to get to grips with the new tyres and brakes and this is something I’ll have to work on before the next race.’

Sarah hopes to be out again in the Texaco Havoline Ginetta Championship at the Donington round in October.

Cassey Watson ‘Buliding’ up the pace with Gentoo

Ginetta Junior driver Cassey Watson has always been recognizable in both SAXMAX and Ginetta Junior for her cars purple paintjobs and pink tiger graphics. However from now on she will be recognizable for flying the colours for award winning Sunderland based housing firm and community builder Gentoo. The market leading company, and Sunderland’s biggest landlord, back the two cars owned by CBS Racing who have signed Cassey to run alongside team owner’s son Alex Austin.
[Read more]

Driving ambition for Karen Andrews

Karen Andrews, female racing driver, looks set to have an exciting racing season ahead of her following a very promising performance recently at Mallory Park, Leicestershire.

Karen, Senior Engineering Technician for the multi-disciplinary consultancy group Scott Wilson, has been driving since the age of four and races competitively in her spare time. Mallory Park on the 17th May, in which she headed off the competition, helped Karen raise her profile on the racing circuit, gaining further recognition for her driving ability and attract sponsorship support.
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A Smashing Time at Pembrey for Dawn Boyd

Dawn Boyd from Andover made the long trip to Pembrey circuit in South Wales over the weekend for the latest rounds of this season’s Dunlop Great & British Mini Challenge races.

Dawn races in the club class of the challenge and shares the track with the faster S class cars during the races. [Read more]

Amanda Hennessy Takes Home 1st Place in the Retro Class!

 

Amanda Hennessy Takes Home 1st Place in the Retro Class, Winner For the Second Year in a Row in the One Lap of America!

 

 

Atlanta, GA (May 16, 2008)

Another year at the One Lap of America, and another year coming home a winner. Amanda competed in this year’s One Lap of America with co-drivers Thomas Daetwyler and Andreas Blochliger in the Retro Class. The vehicle of choice was a 08 Chevrolet HHR SS.

[Read more]

Hard times for Susie Stoddart at “Bella Italia”

From the very beginning of the race weekend at Mugello in the heart of beautiful italian Tuscany Susie Stoddart and her Persson team were struggling in finding a good set-up for her TV Spielfilm AMG Mercedes C class. “On this fast and challenging track it is crucial your car is balanced”, the 25 year old explains. “If you fail to find the right set up it is very difficult to hit the limit.”
[Read more]

Tough run at Rockingham for Cassey Watson

Ginetta Junior driver Cassey Watson always knew rounds 5 & 6 were going to be tough at Rockingham, and so they proved, but ended up leaving the circuit with high hopes for the rest of the season.

Since the first test day back in February it has been obvious that Cassey’s car has been struggling for straight line speed and despite great effort the problem had proved impossible to find, so the Super Speedway section of Rockingham was always going to show the problem at it’s worst.
[Read more]

Lindsey Adams presented as a “Hometown Hero” on DirectTV

(April 7, 2008): DIRECTV Hometown Heroes, a new original series hosted by Joan Lunden, features the inspirational stories of everyday people whose extraordinary acts of kindness, courage and bravery are making a profound difference in the lives of others. Each week, the 30-minute program honors three exceptional members of the DIRECTV community from across America. These unsung heroes show us how we all can make a difference.

Lindsey Adams, a third generation racing driver, began a program in 2007, with her mother, Debbie, called Survivors’ Circle. Lindsey wanted to use her racing for something more than just a competitive endeavor at the race track every weekend.
[Read more]

Q&A: Susie Stoddart - EXCLUSIVE.

DTM star speaks about how she is taking all the pressure off in 2008 - but how equally she is confident she is in for her best year yet in the fiercely-competitive category.

Heading into her third consecutive season in the DTM motorsport’s leading pan-European tin-top series Susie Stoddart insists the pressure is off, and with one of the three-pointed star’s potent 2007-spec C-Classes at her disposal Scotland’s leading lady is well aware she has her greatest chance yet to impress.

Crash.net Radio caught up with the 25-year-old as she looked ahead to the opening round on the 2008 calendar at Hockenheim, hearing about why she is more revved up than ever and raring to get the new campaign into gear this weekend.

Q:
Susie, the 2008 DTM season isn’t far away now, with the first round at Hockenheim this weekend. How excited are you feeling about it?
[Read more]

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