Gallery Results 2013 08 August Croft
3rd-4th August 2013 - Croft
Dean Forward Takes another Double
Dean Forward and his Tecno proved the class of the Historic Formula 3 field at the Croft Nostalgia weekend (3/4 August) as a fine field of cars delivered a great spectacle at this extremely popular event.
Just as in 2012 at the HSCC-organised race meeting, Forward was in unstoppable form and this year he was racing his Tecno for the first time. Meanwhile, Peter Thompson, Leif Bosson and Jim Timms all scaled the podium during the pair of races.
Forward spent Saturday’s qualifying bedding the car in and as a result was slowest of the 16 runners as Tim Kary’s Brabham BT28 headed the grid by the handy margin of 1.5s. Thompson (Brabham BT21), Blockley (Brabham BT21B) and Keith Messer (Vesey) were next up on the grid.
Forward turned the grid around in race one with an astonishing rate of progress: on lap one he was up to seventh and by lap three he was into a lead which he extended to 17s by the flag. Kary’s retirement on lap nine of 13 allowed Thompson and Bosson, also in Brabhams, to complete the podium positions with Brands Hatch winner Thompson taking the runner-up slot by two seconds.
Blockley, Timms, Christoph Widmer (Brabham BT18A) and Steve Seaman (Brabham BT21) made it six Brabhams in the top seven behind the flying Forward before Barry Sewell’s Lotus 41 came home eighth.
Forward’s race one victory meant pole position for Sunday’s encounter and he needed no more encouragement to extend his winning margin to 27 seconds in 20 minutes of racing and 13 laps. In both races, class A for the earlier cars, fell to the Cooper T76 of Mauro Poponcini.
Bosson finally finished second but only after spending much of the race fending off Thompson and Messer before they tangled several laps from home. The incident put Thompson out on the spot and dropped Messer to an eventual seventh. Timms took third but in the closing stages but had a rapidly closing Blockley to think about while, from the back of the grid, Kary was moving in on the pair of them in fifth when the chequered flag fell.
Paul Lawrence
View Results and Timings (as a PDF document) [PDF]
