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Winter Series
- 5th November - "Pearson wins BARC Winter Series championship
"
Ian Pearson won
his second championsip of the season at Brands Hatch last weekend
by scoring two vitories in the BARC Formula Renault Winter series
Club Class. What was even more impressive is the fact that this
was achieved using a different car, after his other car was
sold at the end of the main season.
Ian had intended
to compete in the Formula Renault UK winter series but failed
to raise the appropriate budget. He was looking unlikely to
compete at all until a last minute sponsorship deal with the
Cubicle Centre (West Yorkshire) allowed Ian to compete in the
BARC series.
Qualifying went
very well for Ian, qualifying third overall and first in class
for both races - setting a 46.8 second lap, a staggering 0.8
second under his own lap record set back in July. Ian made an
excellent start in race one to take the overall lead of the
race into the first Corner. Ian's lead was however short lived
and by the end of the first lap was back down to third overall
but still leading the Club Class. For the next few laps Ian
managed to keep the leading pair in his sights while building
up a healthy cushion to the fourth place car and an even bigger
lead to his nearest class competitor who was down in seventh
overall. Ian's gap to the fourth place car did start to reduce
at half distance after a slight mistake at Stirlings bend towards
the end of the lap, this was put down to gravel on the circuit
deposited by cars returing from off track incidents. Ian did
however manage to keep the gap to just under a second to score
an excellent podium place overall, a class victory and a new
class lap record in the process.
Ian did not make
such a good start for race two but still managed to keep hold
of third position and his class lead. With the two race leaders
gradually disappearing, Ian was left in no-mans-land, stuck
between two FR2000 Championship Class scraps and making for
a rather lonel race. Ian managed to maintain a nice safe gap
to the fourth position battle to score another podium and a
first in class finish - a massive 20 seconds clear of his nearest
Club Class rival.
Photographs
of this series courtesy of Jeremy Roberts.
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