2009 Porsche Club Championship Results

Now into our fifth year ,running in Class 1 in the Porsche Club

Our season kicked off at Donington Park and pole position in both races was a good start to the Championship,Faze 1 now working along side NineX who prepared our 968 over the winter period .

Round 1 Donington Park

Race 1 - The run down to Redgate corner saw Mark McAleer take the lead ,but on lap 2 we gained the position back and held it until ,coming out of copse the spinning 911 of John Gilmore forced us to go wide and into the gravel ,giving Mark the lead back .A hard chase followed but second place was the best that could be done . Race 2 - A great start saw us hold the lead until Mark again made a good move down the inside at the end of the main straight .From then on the pressure was put on Mark and on lap 24 he missed a gear ,giving the lead back ,this was held until the end .A great start to the season !

Round 2 Angelsea

Testing on Friday was going well until a wheel bearing failed in the last session ,not having a spare Andy Duncan and Andy D set off on a four hour drive to Porscha Part in Manchester ,so a big thanks to them . The trip was worth it as we got pole in both races on our first visit to the Angelsea circuit.Race 1 saw a lights to flag victory ,Both 968s of Ben Demetriou and Mark McAleer finishing 27 seconds ahead of the rest of the field .Race 2 ,Mark got past on lap 8 and held on until he lost second gear ,handing the lead back to us , so two wins from our trip to Angelsea .

Round 3 - BrandsHatch

A 55.2 in testing on the Friday was thought to be a good time.Qualifying on Saturday saw the same time acheived but Mark put in a really good lap of 54.8 !The first five cars where separated by less than a second ,and our fifth place left us with a lot of work to do .Race 1, A perfect start jumped us into second place ,only to have to slow due to Marks slow start ,Gary duckman took the outside line and got ahead up to Duides .It all got a bit to close at the hairpin and we were hit from behind by Marcus Carniel ,this put us back to 5th .After a few laps ,we made a move on Gary ,then Class 2 driver Jeremy clark let us by ,as he is fighting his own class ,then on the Kevin Harrison , 6 seconds behind we gained a second a lap and made a move into paddock hill .The red flags came out a lap later so and fifth to second finish was a good result . Race 2, Another perfect start ,and once again Mark made a poor one ,from then on the whole race was spent attacking Gary duckman ,and defending from Scott Kavangh ,4th was the best that could be done .

Round 4 - Oulton Park

Marcus Carneil was the quickest in Friday testing setting a time of 1.55.800 .We were struggling to get near this and only managed a early 1.56.Qualifying was a lot better ,we managed to get some clear laps and a time was set of 1.55.612 ,what was not expected was this time was half a second quicker than second place Marcus. Our second quickest time was also good enough for pole in the second race .Race 1 - With a great start we led into old hall ,the first few laps were spent holding off Kevin Harrison in his 964 ,then we edged away and while the others were fighting for position ,we managed pull gap of 24.9 seconds over second place Marcus carniel .Race-2 This time Marcus ,starting from second place ,made the better start and lead into Old hall ,in the next few few laps he started to pull away ,this was expected as the 964 has more torque out of the corners and Marcus knows Oulton Park very well .Then on lap 5 heading down the hill to Hislops ,he turned in and spun ,handing the lead to us .A late charge from Mark McAleer on the last lap put the pressure on ,but we held the lead and a maximum points score at Oulton Park .

Round 5 - Thruxton

Qualifying was going to tricky as we had not raced there since 2005 and didnt test. Scott Kavagh managed to do a trackday and this was money well spent as he put his 993 on pole for the first time this year .We were second .Race-1 ,Scott made good Start and we followed him in second place for the first few laps .Then some pressure was applied and going into church corner ,he went wide and we took the lead and held it till the end .Race-2 This time we were on pole and Scott second ,We expected Scott to make the better start but as the lights went out he stalled .We held the lead for 6 laps but Mark McAleer was on a charge and got a run on us out of Church and overtook at the chicane .Mark was quicker on the back section ,so once we learnt why ,a better run from church to the chicane saw us take the lead back and with 2 laps to go there was not enough time for Mark to challenge and we took the win .

Round 6 - Castle Combe

A test day before prooved its worth but this time the 964s of Marcus Carniel ,Richard Lambert ,and the 993 of Scott were all very quick .We were 3rd on the grid for race 1. The worse start of the year ,too much wheel spin ,dropped us to 10th by the first corner !so the fun began with charge back to the front ,passing 2 cars on lap 1 ,we were 8th and chasing Richard Higgins and Mark McAleer .Marks wishbone failed promoting us to 7th and still chasing Richard ,he was prooving very difficult to get past ,then remarkably ,his wishbone failed as well handing us 6th .Jeremy Clark in Class 2 let us by as he is fighting his own championship ,5th . A move on Kevin Harrison going into the esses gave us 4th and on the last lap more speed out of Camp corner ,we nearly got 3rd from Richard Lambert .Great fun .A much better start in race 2 and the lead into Quarry Corner gave the advantage and we led from there on ,Richard lambert in the 964 keeping the pressure on . A win ,making up for the first race .

Round 7 Croft

Unexpected hot and clear skies made a great start to our Croft weekend ,now leading class one by forty points ,some high scores were all we were looking for .Croft being Marks home circuit ,we knew he would be fired up . Mark was on pole as exepected ,fourth for us was all were hoping for .As the lights went out we jumped into third place ,Marcus carniel taking the lead .This is how it stayed for eight laps ,we were happy to grab some good points for third ,then going into the hairpin Mark went inside Marcus ,Marcus closed the door and Bang! we were now in the lead .Mark tried to come back but there was not enough time .First in race one and a bag full of points.

Race two got underway and again Marcus and Mark touched at the first corner ,Marcus spun, Richard Lambert got past us all to take the lead ,we followed in second .Being held up by Richard ,let Mark close right in .Not wanting to risk anything ,we let him past at the end on the main straight ,Mark got past Richard as we did with a lap to go, so a first and a second was more than we were hoping for .

Round 8 Silverstone

So now on to Silverstone the last event of the year ,even with a health fifty five point lead ,it was still all the play for as an extra twenty points were on offer ,just for starting each race.Qualifying was the highlight of the weekend as for most of the session we were held up or blocked by some of the open runners .Fifth place was all that could be manged so a visit to the pits to basically give up .Andy Duncan looked at the time and with two minutes to go said,get back out NOW! A fast outlap meant we crossed the line as the flag dropped to end the session .This was it ,one lap ,one chance and we did it ,Pole ! As race one started both Scott in his 993 and kevin in his 964 demoted us to third and that was how it stayed .This was enough to win the 2009 class one championship .

A big thanks to James Hilliard and Andy Duncun from NineX, for their support this year and also a an even bigger thanks to my father Andy who has supported me since we started racing in 2005,

We have now won all three classes in the Porsche Club Championship ,class 3 in 2005 ,Class 2 in 2007,and class 1 2009 .We were informed at the gala dinner that this is the first in the history of the club .

We now look forward to 2010 with a possible drive in the GT3 Challenge ,at present we are talking to two major sponsors ,if you are interested in becoming a sponsor please contact ben@faze-1.co.uk

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