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The Quaife Intermarque league was the highlight of a two day race meeting at Lydden Hill, near Canterbury at the weekend.
The Quaife series brought together the current point’s leader Steve Hall, from Dorset, in his Audi TT silhouette, against reining DMN saloon car champion Rod Birley.
In qualifying both drivers set sub lap record times, as Hall just pipped Birley to pole position by a very slender margin with a time of 43.570 seconds against Rod’s 43.630. At the start Hall surged into the lead and Richard Smith sneaked into second place with his spaceframe Vauxhall Tigra. There then followed five laps of very close racing as Rod sought a way past the much lighter Vauxhall. He was finally rewarded on lap six with a good move going up Hairy Hill. The black Escort WRC then latched onto the white Audi and on three occasions they ran side by side through Paddock Bend and Chessons Drift. Again it took all of Birley’s skill to finally make a move which proved decisive. Even so he could not relax as the lighter Audi was proving to be much quicker through the corners, but Rod held on to win by just 0.1 of a second in the closet finish of the weekend.
When Smith pulled off with a broken gearbox, Chris Brockhurst inherited third place with his new Vauxhall Tigra (the ex Mark Jones car). Into fourth came Derek Parker narrowly beating series regular John Chasey. Bill Cookson took sixth spot with his Caterham, just in front of Baz Johnson in his newly acquired Peugeot 206. Jonathon Hoggarth retired his Pontiac with a sick sounding engine.
For the second race Hall bolted on a brand new set of tyres and made an early break in the lead. Birley gradually found his mirrors full of Richard Smith’s Tigra but successfully defended his second place; however he was unable to challenge the leader. Fourth place went to Paul Caller in a Caterham R400, with Derek Parker coming home fifth. John Chasey non started, so Bill Cookson rounded out the top six again shadowed by Baz Johnson.
Both races were recorded for later transmission on Motors television in early September.
