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June 3/4 BRANDS HATCH (Page 3)

There was also a quite sensational announcement after qualifying in that three of the leading cars had been disqualified as a result of being underweight. The two Peugeot's and Matt Kelly in the Nissan Primera were the ones in question. They would have to start at the back of the grid with a ten-second penalty.
The race began on time at one o'clock but was subject to a number of stops and restarts. At the start, Gavin Pyper's Alfa Romeo stalled and Brian Ward in an Integra sliced into the rear of the car, putting both cars out of the race.

As a result of this, the race was aborted and was subject to a restart. Ironically, the three disqualified cars would now not receive the ten second penalty but would start in the position they were in when the race was stopped. The race was also shortened to fifteen minutes. At the time of the stoppage Kevin was eighth and Bill was ninth.
On the first lap of the 'second' race Bill had a moment at Dingle Dell and dropped down the order to fifteenth. Kevin was still eighth. He, though, dropped to tenth on the next lap and got back up to ninth coming under strong pressure from Rick Kraemer in the Ford Focus. Bill had fought his way back up to eleventh. Then, with less than five minutes to go, the black and yellow flag came out again and the cars had to slow and re-bunch. When the green flag was waived to restart the race the cars had just time for one more lap.

There was a titanic struggle up front with Dan Eaves in one of the Peugeots putting the Italian driver Tobi Masini under immense pressure. However, the Integra held on to win by just seven-hundredths of a second.
Kevin held on to his ninth place. And Bill managed to slip past Rick Kraemer on this last lap to grab a top ten finish. It was a good result for the Synchro team.

The next round is now four weeks away at Donington, over the weekend of July 1/2. However, before then, the Synchro team will be setting off for Nurburgring in Germany to take part in the prestigious twenty-four race. Dave Allan will be back from Japan to join Kevin and Bill in the driver line up. To bring the spectacle into focus. there are 300 cars entered for this event. Through a series of qualifying sessions, they will be whittled down to 210 before the race actually starts. A race with that number of starters is very much a sobering thought!