Silverstone 22nd/23rd June 2002
Review
Saturday was a bizarre event with nearly an hour in practice followed by three heats, with the first two won by Gary Adnitt and Wayne Cowling (after Andy Finley was spun out of the lead at the last corner). The most entertaining race was won by Warwick Howlett, who took the lead right at the end from Michael Taylor The final was a reverse grid based on the heat results. Pete Pattenson started on pole with most of the quick drivers on the back three rows of the grid.
Tim Dodgson soon took the lead at the start. Graham Wallace led Gary Adnitt and Pete Sparrow in the charge from the back of the grid. By lap 4 Wallace had taken the lead with Adnitt and Sparrow demoting Dodgson in quick succession, but Dodgson in his best drive to date managed to hang on to the back of the three leaders. Behind the top four Cowling had moved up through the pack to take a distant fifth. At half distance, Adnitt drove around the outside of Wallace into turn two, but only to run wide in the first corner letting Wallace and Sparrow by. But from then on Wallace drove defensively holding off the two quicker cars to take his first sprint race win from Adnitt, Sparrow, and Dodgson.
1½ hrs Enduro Cup Round 4 Review
There was a three-way fight from the start between the top three cars from the previous race. But Ainslie Bousfield (in Adnitt's car) slowly dropped further behind the top two. Behind Cowling, Ed Mason (in Panos car) and Richard Dalton (in Dodgson car) were fighting for fourth. But it was not to last for Cowling, as he dropped from this battle after making a quick stop to re-fix a loose rear wing. At the pitstops, it was the Rocket Dog boys who entertained the pits with their own unique way of running around their cars! But at the front, Dalton stopped first with a quick stop for Dodgson. The quickest stop - less than 10 seconds - went to the third place Bousfield/Adnitt car, which put them out into the lead. Biggest looser at the stops was Wallace/Taylor who dropped to fourth, which was some distance from the lead.
At the hour mark the order at the front was Adnitt/Blousfield 5 secs, Dalton/Sparrow 3 secs, Dodgson/Dalton, 15 secs Taylor/Wallace, 15 secs Sparrow/Cowling, with nobody else on the same lap. But it was not to last for Dodgson/Dalton as their brakes had gone from lap ten, followed on lap 73 by a broke front arm. This allowed Taylor/Wallace back up to third but only briefly. Sparrow was flying in Cowling's car, setting a new lap record and soon moved up a place with 15 mins to go. Adnitt/Bousfield ran out easy winners in the end from Dalton/Sparrow. Behind the top four it was a good race for Rocket Dog racing, with Pete Cardell fifth and Andy Findlay sixth. Mark Heywood, with all his Mondello experience, finished a fine ninth - 3 laps down.
Sprint Race
Graham Wallace tried to muscle his way past pole sitter Gary Adnitt at the first corner, and managed to get through even though it was only for a brief period. Further back down the field there was mayhem as Zoë Cardell Williams car was spilling fuel from an open fuel cap. This in turn caused a few cars to spin on their first lap. Andy Findlay saw himself sat in the middle of the track facing the wrong way with traffic coming towards him. The main pack had to part on either side of him and thankfully he wasn't hit.
Meanwhile, at the front, Gary Adnitt was pulling away from the battle for second place between Graham Wallace and Ed Mason, who kept swapping places on every lap. Wayne Cowling was having a lonely race back in fourth. Ed Mason managed to make second stick and held Wallace off to the end. Gary Adnitt completed a dominant weekend, where everyone got plenty of track time and some frantic racing for their money.
