Middlehurst begins WHT recovery with crushing progression race win

Photo: Ida Wood

Chris Middlehurst put in a dominant display in the Walter Hayes Trophy’s progression race to keep his hopes of reaching the final alive.

The Team Dolan driver finished 0.035 seconds behind the winner of heat two yesterday, but a 30-second penalty for no working transponder cast him down to 19th in the results and denied him automatic progression to the semi-finals.

Having made two appeals that failed, Middlehurst was consigned to contest the progression race and he started from third on the grid.

Against drivers mostly in older machinery, he had no difficulty in crushing the opposition despite the challenge of low visiblity and a very greasy track still somewhat shrouded in fog.

Stuart Adam started on pole ahead of Alan Crocker, racing the distinctive looking Cheetah Mk4 with a cheetah-coloured livery, and it was the latter who led exiting Copse for the first time.

Middlehurst was ahead before the first braking zone after Maggotts though, and entering the Wellington Straight he was already several car lengths clear. B-M Racing’s Neil McArthur, also in a modern Formula Ford car, had made it from fourth to second by the end of that straight, but was already 3.181 seconds behind the leader as lap two began.

It took a few laps for Middlehurst to find the peak pace of the track as it remained slippy, which was in the 1m09s, and he finished the 10-lap encounter 21.334s clear of Vertical Racing’s Ian Campbell in second place.

Crocker and Swift Cooper’s Alan Slater had been third and fourth after lap one, but Campbell cleared both on the second tour and then inherited second after McArthur was summoned to the pits to ensure his rain light was on.

Middlehurst was already 10.845s up the road at that point, but Campbell had impressively already climbed up from 18th, and Classic & Race driver Joshua Law made overtakes for third place as McArthur did not rejoin the action.

The next moment of drama was on lap eight, as Crocker had a big spin coming out of Becketts. He dropped from fourth to eighth, then lost that position at the chequered flag as Adam nosed ahead by 0.061s in a photo finish.

Middlehurst’s victory more than ensured his place on the grid of the Last Chance Race, since the top 16 in the progression race all make it through, but he will have to rise up the order once again to make the semi-finals.

Race results (10 laps)