Ben Clucas, driving the Topcats Racing Runnymede Mosler in the Dutch Supercar Challenge at Silverstone GP is all over the back of Martin Short’s ‘Development’ works Mosler, but, oh boy, does Short’s new aerodynamic kit make his car pull away down the straights. Clucas finally makes a ‘do or die’ maneouvre to get past and makes it stick.
Unpredictable weather set the scene for the Friday qualifying session and Saturday’s race in the British opening round of the Dutch Supercar Challenge at the Silverstone GP Circuit. With just a 20 minute qualifying session split between two drivers, the opportunity to post a pole grabbing lap would be limited to two or three laps. Andrew Beaumont was tasked with setting the opening qualifiers in the MT900 GT3 spec car and pitting a handful of minutes later to relay the car to the reigning Britcar 500 champ, Ben Clucas.
Owner driver, Andrew Beaumont and last years Britcar 500 Champion, Ben Clucas, will be pairing up again to drive the Mosler MT900 GT3 and contest the UK and opening round of the Dutch Supercar Challenge at Silverstone GP this weekend, Sat/Sun, April 3&4th.
To capitalise on the opportunities of racing at the infamous Spa Francorchamps, both the Beaumont/Gormley Mosler and the Class 2 Marcos Mantis were entered for the heavily subscribed hour long Dutch Super Car race on the Sunday, some 50 cars in all. Surprise entrant and team owner, Warren Gilbert driving the Mantis for the full hour, with compulsory pitstops for all.
Both cars had to start from the back of the grid having not competed in the previous Saturday race. The possibility of making it to the top end of the leaderboard was seemingly impossible for either car, but both were to prove otherwise, in particular Warrens feisty antics saw him fly up and up the leaderboard until he was in a remarkable 6th position as the pitstop window opened and the leaders were beginning to pit. A clean pitstop saw Warren settle into 9th position once all cars had done their mandatory pitstops. Meanwhile the victor of the Saturday race, the Rollcentre Mosler of Le Mans racer Martin Short had outwitted himself by mistiming his pitstop thus having to drop down the order had also been making progress in equal measure and both the Topcats Marcos and the Rollcentre Mosler were tailing each other as they carved their way through the slower cars. Both were vying for position but Warren continued to nose ahead, unperturbed by the Mosler, full in his mirrors. In the end they crossed the line with just 400ths of a second between them.
