ROUND 1 – ELF Renault Clio Cup / Brands Hatch, Kent, April 1st 2007
High Drama at Brands Hatch opener
Sunday 1st April saw the opening round of the ELF Renault Clio Cup championship at the famous Kent racing circuit Brands Hatch and it proved to be an incident-packed weekend for the ‘Team Gladman’ father and son racing duo - Jonathan and David Shepherd.
Supporting the high-profile British Touring Car Championship, the ELF Renault Clio Cup is a one-make saloon car series and now in its eighth year, it’s enjoying the most popular season ever, as the new 2.0-litre 205bhp model makes its debut.
The Clio Cup is a proven stepping-stone for potential Touring Car aspirants and some of the best drivers in the UK compete for the honours and the chance to move up into top-level motorsport.
 With TV coverage and big crowds attending the famous Brands Hatch circuit for round one of the 2007 championship, the pressure was on as the drivers and the team, Congleton based Amery Motorsport prepared for their biggest challenge to date.
With over 40 cars entered and only 32 slots on the grid for the final, qualifying was going to be crucial. Neither driver had been able to practice on the track in the dry before and with clear blue skies the qualifying sessions were always going to be a learning curve. Although both drivers improved lap-by-lap, they had to be content with lower-half grid positions for the qualifying races.
Only the top sixteen from the twenty-two cars entered into each of Saturday’s two separate qualifying races would make the grid for Sunday’s final. Jonathan was the first of the duo to race and managed to make it through to Sunday’s final with several good passing manoeuvres as he settled into the race.
 Son David (alias ‘Dreaded Dave’, due to his dreadlocked hairstyle) was less fortunate in the 2nd qualifying race, having made a good start he was collected by another car that had pitched into a spin at ‘Surtees’, forcing David off the track, only to rejoin the race with a damaged car and unable to gain enough places to join the top 16 qualifiers. So with only one of the two cars entered making it through to the final, the Amery Motorsport team quickly got to work on preparations for Sundays race.
Lining up on the fourteenth row of a full grid of Clio Cup cars, meant that Jonathan had a great deal of work to do if he wanted to go home from the weekend with any points. And in front of the TV cameras and the large crowds of spectators, the pressure was on to make a good start and try to gain as many places as possible on the opening lap of the 20 lap race.
As the lights went green, Jonathan made a good start and stayed on the outside into the famous ‘Paddock Hill’ bend, but suddenly he was nudged from behind and pushed into a sideways slide at nearly 100mph. With so many cars bunched together the inevitable happened and he was t-boned by another car, causing considerable damage to the side of his ‘Team Gladman’ Clio.
 Jonathan managed to rejoin the race at the back and surprised to find all the wheels pointing in the same direction he battled to the chequered flag managing to gain a few places along the way and finishing in 24th position.
As Jonathan explained; “We knew it was always going to be a baptism of fire moving up into such a competitive race series and given how little testing there has been available, we didn’t expect to be very competitive at Brands”.
“It’s a shame we both couldn’t make the final, as the team has done a superb job leading up to the first event. Our aim is to use 2007 as big a learning curve and pick-up as many points as we can and just as important is to try and have as much fun as we can along the way”.
You can watch the ELF Renault Clio Cup on ITV1’s Motorsport UK on Sunday evenings, check programme listings for times.
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