The late summer meetings at Donington Park provided some great entertainment, despite some inclement weather, with some good performances from local drivers

Short oval specialist Martin Heath, from Burton-on-Trent, was having a first Excool OSS outing in his recently acquired Radical SR3 at the BRSCC meeting. Martin had a great duel with the more experienced Roland Lewis (Jade 3) and looked set to gain the place before a late race spin at the chicane. He recovered to close to within 3 seconds of Lewis and take second in class. Martin claimed a top ten finish (third in class) in the following day’s race and although frustrated by that spin, was delighted with the car’s performance. Mike Jenvey and Duncan Williams shared the overall honours.

Richard Avery (Boxster) completed the first leg of a Porsche Championship double before the rain set in, forcing the single-seat Formula Jedi race to be postponed until later in the day. It was still damp as series leader Paul Butcher made the best of the conditions to win race one while 2013 champion Lee Morgan took race two. Former Mk1 MX-5 champion Jonathan Greensmith took his maiden MX-5 Supercup victory in the wet and recovered to third (behind James Blake-Baldwin and Jack Harding) following a first lap spin in race two.

The rain returned, a week later, for the annual visit of the Classic Sports Car Club. A great drive by Mark Campbell came to nought in the Swinging Sixties Gp2 encounter. The Hilton racer made a great start to snatch second in his Triumph TR5 and put Richard Plant’s leading Morgan under pressure. Taking his mandatory pitstop early, Mark rejoined in 16th place and made rapid progress up to fourth before being forced to retire. Plant, with son William, went on to take a comfortable victory ahead of the Lotus Elan of Jeremy Cooke and Mike Dowd. Clive Tong and Vaughan Winter won the Swinging Sixties Gp1 race in their Mini Cooper S.

Cooke and Dowd went one place better in the Classic K Series after catching long time leader Paul Tooms (Elan) on the final lap. Tooms’ pace fell away as his wet tyres failed to cope with the rapidly drying track and the E-Type Jaguar of Mike and Kallum Gray and the Cooke /Dowd Elan closed in. Dowd first passed Kallum Gray for second and then led the pair past the struggling Tooms to take an eight second victory.

Castle Donington’s Martin Adams loves his home circuit but could only take 20th place in treacherous qualifying conditions for the Future Classics event. In the race he eased through the field to join the battle for third. Such was the closeness of the racing that Martin had to settle for seventh at the flag, but this gave him a comfortable class victory in his Triumph TR7. The race win went to Pantellis Christoforou in his Ford Escort RS1600.

Kevin Doyle (XJ12) won the first Jaguar Saloon & GT race from ninth on the grid despite a couple of ‘moments’ including a wild slide leaving the chicane. He beat James Ramm by 1.3 seconds and repeated the feat in the following day’s race.