Formula Open young guns shine at Hampton Downs

| Photographer Credit: Josh Crossman Buzzy Media

The Legends of Speed meeting celebrating David Oxton at Hampton Downs last weekend turned out to be very challenging for the Formula Open New Zealand series. The weekend started off on the Friday looking great with a big field of Formula Atlantics and ex TRS cars.

The field was boosted by six Formula Atlantics from Australia and one from the South Island. However, testing on Friday put paid to three cars, out with engine issues which left seventeen cars to face the starter on Saturday morning.

Qualifying
Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, and everybody was in a great mood and looking forward to a great day’s racing. However it soon turned frustrating as the organisers had grouped both the FONZ cars and the NZ Sports Cars together in qualifying so nobody from either group got a clear lap.

Race One
Into the first corner and just to prove he has lost none of his speed and experience Ken Smith went from third on the grid around the outside of both Fergus Crabb and Ollie Sentch and would have passed Ethan Sillay as well but backed out of it to avoid hitting Ethan so came out in second place.

Ethan’s much later Reynard 93 had too much speed for Ken and progressively opened up the gap. Ken Held second for the first three laps until a gear election problem side lined him. What ensued behind him were some fierce battles with Ollie and Fergus Crab engaging in a battle royal , both got out of the car beaming.. Further down the field were Paul Couper and Richard Crabb having a real tussle. Meanwhile our Australian visitors were all battling with each other as they cameto grips with the layout of Hampton Downs.

Then as happened at Taupo a couple of weeks earlier the fire alarm went off, forcing the race to be stopped while Race Control and the pit buildings and hospitality suites were evacuated. Sadly, for reasons known only to themselves the race was not restarted. This left Ethan Sillay the winner in the David Oxton Cup for Formula Atlantics, James Corban winning the Jim Palmer Cup for the TRS FT40 cars and Fergus Crabb the winner in the Graeme Lawrence Cup for FT50’s

Race Two
On Sunday morning the contrast to Saturday was dismal weather wise with the circuit being drenched in persistent rain. We lost two cars on Saturday as both Paul Couper (gearbox) and Leo Francis (engine going into limp mode) were non-starters. Ken Smith and Ethan Sillay sat the race out as they did not have wet tyres. So that left thirteen cars to start the race which was instantly thrown into chaos as Peter Lucas aquaplaned on the front straight and hit the wall just as Gary Rush who had not been there on the Saturday and had to start from the rear of the grid arrived on the scene through the spray and collected the Pye Ralt RT4. Both cars were out for the day on the spot.

Needless to say the race progressed with everybody gingerly tip toeing around a soaked race track. Ollie Sentch won the David Oxton Cup race and the same winners as in race one took the other two cups.

Race Three
The start looked as though the rain would continue but it started to ease and finally stop in the previous saloon car race by this stage the field was looking somewhat depleted but still some good quality was out there the return of Ethan Sillay (on a now drying track) spiced the Formula Atlantic group up.

As in race one Ethan ran away and hid leading easily until the last lap and as he was coming up the hill towards the finish line his engine explode sending a conrod out through the block. Luckily for Ethan he had enough speed and distance to coast across the line in first place with a very fast closing
Fergus Crabb taking second on the road.

Ollie Sentch was third across the line in his Swift DB4 Formula Atlantic. Ollie has been the find of the series when considering he had never even sat in one of these cars until the week prior to the Historic GP at Taupo where ended up fourth in the fifteen lap feature just pipping Greg Murphy on the line. Both Ollie and Ethan are two young chargers who have no interest in racing modern cars.

They both agree that these cars are faster than anything else around over a lap and give the biggest buzz you could ever want. So the weekend finished with three first time race winners and three new group winners with Ollie and Ethan winning the Formula Atlantic Group, James Corban winning all three races in the FT40 Group and Fergus Crabb winning all three races in the FT50 Group. Sadly, we won’t see Fergus back again this season as he is concentrating on his off-road racing and his race engineering business.

As for the Australians they had great time even though two of their cars did not make it for the weekend. But have assured us they are coming back next season and there is even talk of a transTasman series. Formula Open New Zealand would love to have them back and the possibility of going to Australia to race is a tantalising prospect.

Formula Open New Zealand would like to thank CRC for supporting the Legends of Speed meeting celebrating David Oxton and our season’s sponsors Mountshop and GVI.

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