Saturday 10th November brought to a close the 2018 MSVT Track day Championship, the final round would be held at Brands Hatch; Indy Circuit.
DLR’s sponsored Clio of Tom Rogers and John Griffith competing in Class C of the championship would be aiming for maximum points in this final round to help fix their place on the podium. Following on from a down poor the night before, qualifying was a nail bitter, with fresh rubber and a wet track came plenty of “off road” action throughout the grid, with increasing competition and lap times tumbling as each driver aimed for every last tenth they could. The DLR Clio qualified 7th on grid and 2nd in Class, only 0.368 sec from the Class leading Honda Civic of G&M Motorsports.
Once the grid was formed and the lights when out; Class C’s pole sitter G&M Motorsports Sam Gay was under pressure from the start in his Civic Type-R; a great start by the DLR Motorsport Clio of Rogers and Griffith saw them pass the Civic on the approach to turn one with Hyde in the Tylah Motorsport Fiesta looking to follow suit on the inside. This early moved allowed DLR Motorsport to pull ahead of the chasing pack and to take the class lead.
The pit window opening signalled the start of a very busy period in the Brands Hatch pit lane as teams and drivers prepared to receive their cars for the mandatory stops and driver changes – a well timed pit stop could be a defining factor in which teams came out on top in the second half of the race!
Having kept a relatively ‘low profile’ for the first half of the race the Team Turtle pairing of Tommy Griffiths and Kester Cook opted to pit early, a decisive move that meant they could take full advantage of a number of quieter laps with less traffic on their return to the circuit. The Integra had soon caught onto the back of the battling G&M Motorsports Civic and DLR Clio. The Clio and Civic exchanging position over a number of closely fought laps with the Integra edging ever closer before making a move to pass the Clio on the inside at clearways before going on to pass the Civic on the outside at paddock!
Cook and Griffiths were the first of the Class C entries to reach the chequered flag in their Team Turtle Integra, followed by Alf Hyde in the Tylah Motorsport Ford Fiesta and Sam Gay in the G&M Motorsport Civic, the DLR Motorsport Clio placing 4th in class with an 8th overall finish. This final push for points had paid off for the pairing with Thomas and John finishing the Class C season in 2nd place just 6 points behind the 1st place Tylah Motorsport BMW of Dean Hyde, and an overall 11th place championship standing out of the 60+ teams taking part.
With that the 2018 season ends, a massive thank you to everyone involved in making this year possible! It has been an adrenaline filled experience and one we would like to carry forward to next year. Thank you DLR’s pit crew; Carl and Luke for all the effort this year lads, we could not have done it without you! Congratulations to Tom and John; a good result in what turned out to be a tough year, and finally to the whole Team well done on 2nd place, lets see what 2019 will bring . . . . . . . . .
DLR Transport, Specialised U.K Haulage – www.dlrtransport.co.uk Facebook: DLR Transport
Eclipse Motorsport.
Mercury Garage – @MercuryGarageWVTS – Tel: 01623 743592 – Facebook: Mercury Garage
GASH Racing, “Guaranteed never to come first” Facebook: GASH Racing 
