ROUNDS 9 - ELF Renault Clio Cup / Brands Hatch, Kent, August 18/19 2007

Dreaded Dave flies at Brands

The tight demanding Indy circuit at Brands Hatch produced a highly charged and highly controversial round nine of the ELF Renault Clio Cup as the championship visited the historic Kent venue.

Dreaded Dave, the dreadlocked member of the Team Gladman father and son racing duo of Jonathan and David Shepherd, came away with a bag full of points with an impressive 11th place in the final. Whilst Jonathan never got to take the start, as his car spun off on some spilt oil on the green flag warm-up lap.

As both drivers headed into the weekend, they knew it was going to be frantic. In a test session the previous week at the super fast Thruxton circuit, Jonathan had suffered a high speed accident, which ended with the car on its roof and totally wrecked. Luckily Jonathan was unhurt and after a huge amount of effort, working every hour available the Amery Motorsport team managed to rebuild the Clio, just in time for Brands Hatch.

Saturday mornings qualifying session was the first time Jonathan’s car had been driven in anger and suffering from understeer Jonathan could only manage to finish in 15th place. David meanwhile was enjoying his session and ended 9th fastest in his group.

With only 16 drivers going through from each of the qualification races on Saturday afternoon, to establish the grid of 32 cars for Sundays final, both drivers were confident that providing they could stay out of trouble, then they should make the final. Both Jonathan and David drove perfect races and made the chequered flag in 16th and 11th places respectively.

Whilst Saturday had remained dry all day, Sunday was a wash-out, causing problems and crashes in all the different races throughout the day, with two drivers taken to hospital following a huge pile-up in the first Touring Car race.

By the time the Clios lined-up in the assembly area the track was drying and everyone opted for slick tyres. As all 32 cars weaved around on their green flag warm-up lap, Jonathan’s car suddenly swopped ends sending him into the barriers and out of the race. A disgruntled Jonathan said afterwards “I must have ran over some spilt oil as I weaved around to heat the tyres. I’m gutted, especially after all the hard work put in by the team over the last week to rebuild the car”.

So with only one Team Gladman car on the grid and sitting right in the middle of the pack, all eyes were on ‘Dreaded Dave’ to get the points. As the lights went out Dave made a good start and took the inside line down through the famous ‘Paddock Hill’ bend. With so many cars jostling for position on a damp track the inevitable happened and chaos broke out, resulting in ten cars crashing out on the first lap and the red flags coming out.

After quite a delay to clear all the stricken cars the race was restarted with Dave now having six less cars to pass in front of him. But before they could even get round to form on the grid, the championship leader Stefan Hodgetts lost control of his car on the green flag lap and forced the start to be delayed for the second time.

With a busy schedule of racing and the live TV broadcasts planned for the Touring Cars, the officials cancelled the race and stated that should there be sufficient time at the end of the day, they could try again, but not before the inevitable dressing down of all the Clio Cup racers in the Renault marquee.

Thankfully the timetable suffered no further delays and at 6pm on Sunday evening 26 from the original 32 Clio’s lined up for the final. Dave was feeling confident and fired-up to try and gain as many points as possible and possibly make his first top ten finish of the season.

Another good start saw Dave hold position and settle into the first few laps in a very tight bunch of cars. Confident with his set-up Dave started to push hard and was all over the group of cars in front of him. Lap by lap he started picking them off one by one with some great moves into the ‘Druids’ hairpin. By the chequered flag Dave had made it up to 11th place, his best finish to date, much to the delight of his team, sponsors and family, which had included his dad Jonathan watching from the grandstand.

A delighted Dave said after climbing out of the car “That was amazing. I was flying, definitely faster than the guys in front and these are the guys I was nowhere near at the beginning of the season. It’s a shame I didn’t make the top-ten, but I really feel I’ve got the car sorted now and can’t wait for Donington”.

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