Knockhill 6/5/18 Meeting (Reverse Direction)

This was an interesting meeting for me as I had never seen Knockhill run in reverse, anti-clockwise direction. It turns out the circuit provides great racing in either direction, and provides some variety for the season for both competitors and spectators.
The marshals again had lots of clearing up to do at this meeting, but kept things almost to schedule despite some major incidents.
Full results are available on https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1520856.

Celtic Speed Mini Cooper Cup (3 races)
Some of this meeting’s closest racing with groups of cars battling for position. Race 1 had three laps added for a safety car period of 4 laps due to two cars, Dillon and Hutchinson, going off at Clarks. The top 5 had a close battle with Sleigh emerging victorious over Duncan. On the last lap McNaughton went off while challenging Weddell at Clarks. McNaughton’s car rolled and was damaged, but continued in the later races, minus windscreen and rear hatch, at unabated speed. Weddell was later disqualified from race 1 for a driving standards infringement.
In the second and third races, the hairpin in reverse direction seemed to present a challenge for many of the Mini competitors, with numerous incidents, mostly minor, occurring here during their races. Duncan managed to pass Sleigh for the win in the second race.
Finally, in the third race Sleigh had a moment going in to the hairpin on the first lap and dropped down the field, recovering to third. Duncan won from Munro.

Scottish Legends Cars Championship (3 races)
Shock news in Legends when John Paterson failed to win heat one, finishing ninth. He suffered a spin on lap 2 at the hairpin losing a lot of ground. Hunter won from Newall..
Normal service was resumed in heat 2 when Paterson won from Newall.
In the final, Paterson was the last of the finishers in fourteenth place. For much of the race McGill and NcNeill had a thrilling battle at the front, but later dropped back. Critchlow went off at the hairpin, which brought out the safety car for 2 laps. Later Vincent’s brakes failed approaching the hairpin and he went nose first in to the tyre barrier, but the car was almost undamaged, despite the speed of the impact. Greenwood won from Hodgson.

Scottish Saloon and Sportscar Championship (2 races)
Ron Cumming (Nemesis Kitcar) was comfortably on pole for the first race, but suffered a poor start and fell to last. He was making good progress, but lost control under braking for the hairpin and went sideways on to the infield grass. When the car dug into the grass on the infield the car scarily rolled a few times. Cumming required lengthy treatment before being taken to the medical centre and the car was probably destroyed. In the restarted race, Simpson (Marcos Mantis) and Drummond (Escort Cosworth) were fighting at the front when Dawson (SEAT Leon Supercopa) went through the hairpin infield and collided heavily with Simpson. This caused the race to be red flagged and the result was taken from the previous lap with Drummond winning from Simpson.
The second race was, thankfully, a less dramatic event with Morrison (Seat TCR) winning from Drummond who seemed to be suffering mechanical issues.

Scottish Formula Ford 1600 Championship (2 races)
The FFord field included a number of guests from the British Championship who were getting to know the track before next week’s visit with the TCR UK meeting, and were therefore ineligible for points. For the first race, the 3 visiting Cliff Dempsey Racing cars started from the pit lane to keep them out of any starting dramas. The visitors were involved in most of the many entertaining battles through the field. Martin won from the visiting Bentley-Ellis.
The second race was won by Round-Garrido from Martin after the race was red flagged and declared at 9 laps due to Sykes beaching his car at the hairpin.

Scottish Classic Sports and Saloons (2 races)
As usual, there was a great assortment of cars (13 starters in 5 classes) with few wheel to wheel battles. Kinmond (Rover SD1 3500) won the first race from Graham in the similarly powered Triumph TR8.
In the second race, clear leader Kinmond retired with mechanical issues, leaving Graham to win from Baptie (Fiat X1/9). Boyd’s Porsche 911, which seemed a little slower than usual in the first race, had possible turbo problems which grew worse in the second race, so Conway’s Mini 1275GT put in a spirited chase but failed to get close enough to challenge Boyd for fourth.

Scottish BMW and SMTA Fiesta and Hot Hatch Championship
There were no BMWs at this meeting so there were 9 Fiesta STs in the two races. MacCaulay won both races from Geraghty who was making a guest appearance. When interviewed, MacCaulay credited his now well-sorted car with giving him some impressive speed.