Smith wins red-flagged last chance race to reach FFord Festival final

Photo: Ida Wood

B-M Racing’s Rory Smith won a twice red-flagged Formula Ford Festival last chance race to earn his place in the final.

There was drama before the start as Graham Brunton Racing’s Antonio Costantino, a Team Canada scholar, was denied entry into the race by the event-organising BRSCC.

After a tricky Saturday, Costantino’s car had been repaired ready to enter the progression race on Sunday morning and was scrutineered to ensure it was race legal. However rather than release the car and return it to the team, circuit staff abandoned it in a position where it could not be retrieved by GBR and Costantino missed out on racing.

There was plenty of back-and-forth between GBR and the BRSCC, but no action taken by the latter and Costantino also missed the last chance race.

AC Racing’s Andy Charsley started the damp race on pole, with Smith, his team-mate David McArthur and Oldfield Motorsport’s Spencer Shinner occuping the next grid spots.

RPC Motorsport’s Dan Rene Larsen went off on the formation lap, and at the start Shinner dropped down the order. Charsley was able to keep Smith, running on a set of older tyres, at bay until the descent down to Graham Hill Bend where he took the lead and never looked back.

Charsley almost swamped McArthur off the track down the Cooper Straight but still lost second to him, and before the end of the lap Pirate M-Sports’ Leanne McShane and Ammonite Motorsport’s Brindley Kinch got through too.

They were three-wide as lap two began, and Kinch passed McShane for third before the safety car was called due to AF Racing’s Adam Fathers and PA Motorsport’s Ben Powney having an incident approaching Graham Hill Bend.

There was a lengthy stoppage and a wait before Powney’s mostly undamaged car was hoisted away, and the grid reconvened in their original order.

Smith was slower off the line this time but still took the lead before the first corner and McArthur quickly got through too. Shinner again lost ground, with McShane darting between cars to get into third. Kinch spun at Clearways, but got going again.

The top six, the key positions which guaranteed progression to the final, looked to be settled but the order within that six was not.

McShane had to fend off Charsley, who then got passed by Shinner before red flags waved on lap as Team Dolan’s Stephen O’Connor and Kinch went off at Clearways. There was no restart, and the results were taken from the end of lap three which meant Smith won ahead of McArthur, McShane, Shinner, Charsley and B-M’s Drew Cameron.

Restarted race results (3 laps)