Croft 13th April 2009

The 2009 Porsche Club Championship got off to a brilliant start at Croft on Easter Bank Holiday. Despite a reputation for poor weather Darlington and District Motor Club’s first sprint of the year was actually blessed with a fine spring day and perfect, dry conditions.

Twelve competitors entered this round with six drivers in Class P4. Entering P4 after a long stint in Class P2, Simon Butterworth is now sharing an orange 924S with son Ben who made his competitive debut at Croft. Simon cut down his times on each sprint until his final run put him in third place with a fastest time of 102.49 seconds. Just 0.62 seconds separated Simon from Andrew Jeff who drove his smartly turned out and relatively standard 2.5litre 944 to second place. Cutting a remarkable 7.95 seconds off Andrew’s time was Graham Rose (924S), who used his long experience of Croft to devastating effect. Consistently quick all day, Graham’s final and fastest run won the class in 93.92 seconds. Class P3 saw two drivers at Croft with David Strange driving his 1973 911 to second place in 95.85 seconds. It was close over the day but a winning margin of just under half a second put Ian Wadsworth (1975 911 3.0litre) into first place with a fastest time of 95.89 seconds.

Two speed champion veterans made up Class P2 with Geraint Evans (3.2 911) and John Biddulph going head to head. Geraint’s fastest run of 95.12 seconds left him in second place while John drove his distinctive red and orange 3.2 Carrera to a winning time of 92.22 seconds after impressively hacking his times down over the day. Like classes P2 and P3, there were also two drivers in Class P1. This season we have Karl Lupton moving out of P3 and the shared use of David Strange’s car and entering P1 in a supercharged 944. Karl’s fastest time at Croft was 92.65 seconds for second place while Colin Belton drove his 993 RSR to a class win of 86.28 seconds, just outside of the 2007 class record of 25.98 seconds.

The next two rounds comprise a double header on 2nd and 3rd May at Anglesey for our first official visit to this revamped and exciting circuit. Following that we have a round in Devon on 17th May at picturesque Wiscombe for our first hill climb of the 2009 season.