Masters Pre-66 Touring Cars
Rain had dominated the days' earlier qualifying sessions but on a drying track Julian Thomas qualified in 6th overall and 1st in class in his Ford Falcon with a time of 2:10.705 which was set on his last lap.
A huge grid of 48 cars assembled for the race which included the touring-cars of the Dutch Historic Touring Car & GT Championship which ran concurrently with the Masters cars. For the early part of the race, Thomas enjoyed some really close racing and battled with the pole-sitting Lotus Cortina of Andrea Stortoni, holding him off until lap 8 before the Italian retired on lap 15.
“It was brilliant”, said Thomas. “We did a little setup change before the race, and it absolutely transformed the car. Suddenly I had a race car on my hands! The battle with Andrea Stortoni was fantastic, I had good fun.”
Thomas finished 1st in class and 2nd overall in the Masters Race. A great result for the driver, car and team who've now picked up trophies in their last 2 outings.
Position | Class | Number | Driver(s) | Car | Laps | Best Lap |
2 | 1 | 192 | Julian Thomas | Ford Falcon | 19 | 2:09.286 |
Masters Gentleman Drivers
The Austin Healey 3000 of owner Nils-Fredrik Nyblaeus and co driver Jeremy Welch qualified 1st in the C2 class and 17th overall.
The 42 car grid included cars from the Dutch Historic Touring Car and GT Championship who had a grip advantage at the start courtesy of their wider M section tyres. Nyblaeus would lose several places as a result but was able to make up ground once the race was underway.
The safety car came out on lap 11 to allow the marshals to clear up some oil and after 18 laps Nils came into the pits for his pit stop and driver change. Jeremy was able to really make some progress, lapping a full second faster than he had in his own Healey, KVS 484 earlier in the year and gaining a number of places.
With the Dutch cars flagged off with 30 minutes to go the Masters cars had a full 30 minutes of the track to battle amongst themselves. The pairing of Nyblaeus and Welch went on to finish 2nd in class, 12th overall and the highest placed Austin Healey.
Position | Class | Number | Driver(s) | Car | Laps | Best Lap |
12 | 2 | 96 | Nils-Fredrik Nyblaeus/Jeremy Welch | Austin Healey 3000 | 28 | 2:06.078 |