Yesterday at Knockhill, we rounded out our Super Lap Scotland Championship and Mod Sports Series for 2020. We welcomed a number of visiting race series to Knockhill which culminated in our biggest entry of the season.
It was all action on track, with a jam-packed timetable that took us into darkness to complete. It was cool to see the glowing brake discs of the Mod Sports racers as they slammed on the anchors heading into the hairpin as the light faded rapidly!
Conditions on track were tricky for most of the day, but still provided some thrilling competition in all the competing series. In SLS, we had a season-high of seven cars competing in the Pro class – and it was former King of the Hill, Andy Forrest who took the points win. Forrest (54.499s) though, wasn’t the fastest on the time sheets as Simon Bainbridge in his SB Racing Chrono clocked a 52.668s lap in damp conditions at Knocklhill (Guest). Matty Lawson took P3 on the day, and although points are still provisional, it looks like he’ll wrap up the Pro Class Championship win for 2020.
In Class A, SLS stalwart David Long faced-off against the impressive Radical of Gordon Duncan; with Duncan clocking a time of 58.042s to claim the Class A honours on the day. Class B was always going to be a close run thing with Andy Clotworthy and Robbie Wyper going hard at it all season. But, on the day it was Wyper who managed to pull his Super Lap together for a time of 57.626s, 1.5s ahead of Clotworthy.
Francis Simpson has been in spectacular form this season (Class C), claiming outright wins multiple times this year in his Honda Civic. He took another victory on Sunday with an impressive sub-minute lap ahead of both Michael Osborne Junior and Senior. Class D honours wen to Yumen Lai, who managed to fend of returning SLS’er Stevie McNab and former King of the Hill, Martin Brown.
The bragging rights in Class E went to Fraser McNeill who powered his Honda Civic to the win by the slenderest of margins, beating Robert Wilkie in his Renault Megane by just 0.298s. Class F had a healthy entry and was extremely competitive with the top three finishers in class ending the day within one second of each other. Points wise, Robert Jobson claimed the spoils claiming P2 on the road ahead of Michael Imrie in third. However, although competing as a guest, Alan Kirkcaldy stormed to the top of the time sheets with a time of 1:02.903s in his Renault Clio 182. It would be interesting to hear what the versatile and accomplished competitor thought about his first SLS experience.
In Class G, Adam Morrison has been the man to beat all season and he rounded out his season with another win in his Mini Cooper – claiming top spot ahead of Josh Hislop and Mark Geraghty. Geraghty, along with five fellow SLS’ers went on to compete in the Mod Sport races (Super Lap Race Series – which gives SLS drivers the opportunity to go racing and compete in SLS, all on the same day).
The opening Mod Sports race was a close run thing as Ron Cumming secured victory ahead of Paul Brydon by just 0.5secs. Brydon pushed hard all race but just couldn’t make any significant move stick on Cumming’s super-fast Nemesis. Brydon would round out the second race as victor, crossing the finish line ahead of Roddie Paterson and Paul Rankin – glowing brake discs and all.
In the Formula Ford races, Jordan Gronkowski took a comfortable win in the opening race by 12 seconds, with Logan Hannah and Matthew Chisholm coming home 2nd and 3rd respectively. That win, along with Gronkowski’s recent dominance of the FF scene in Scotland made him odds on favourite to take his second David Leslie trophy race win in two years. However, Logan Hannah put on a spectacular display to give Gronkowski a run for his money.
Hannah took the lead with a brave move heading into Duffus Dip and held on for a couple of laps before Gronkowski made his move at the Hairpin to retake the lead. Two laps later, again at Duffus Dip, Hannah was back in the lead and set about fending off Gronkowski’s charge for the remaining laps of the race to come home first. A famous victory indeed, the first female to win the David Leslie Trophy and a massive shot in the arm for Hannah as she heads South for the Walter Hayes and Formula Ford Festival races.
On their second visit of the season to Knockhill, The Northern Saloons and Sports Car Championship played out three races around the twists and dips of Knockhill. The on-the-road victories went to Jon Woolfitt (x2) and Gary Bowers (x1). The Scottish Legends cars also enjoyed three races at Knockhill on Sunday 18th October. Steven McGill secured two heat victories ahead of Stewart Black with just 0.379s and 0.369s separating the duo in each heat. With McGill failing to finish the final race of the day, Black went onto claim the win ahead of James Hall-Morton (Guest) by just 0.164s. It was great to see so many Legends back out on track at Knockhill, hopefully, we’ll see fuller grids across the board next year when things, hopefully, return to normal.
That rounds out our 2020 KMSC racing season, a big thanks to all the bike and car racers who have participated in one of our events this year, and a very big thank you to all those behind the scenes that have helped us deliver race events in very challenging circumstances.
See you all in 2021.