Steven Parker wins Cam Forbes Trophy again at Trac Mon

At this meeting on Anglesey each year the competitors in the CNC Heads Championship event compete for the Cam Forbes Trophy. This wonderful trophy was presented to the BARC North Western Centre by Dawn Forbes, widow of Cam, who was a regular competitor for many years. Dawn wanted Cam’s exploits and love of the championship to be remembered and supplied this trophy to the centre to that end. Cam’s favourite circuit was Anglesey so it was agreed that it would be presented at one of our meetings here each year. Dawn told the committee that Cam was always a slow starter at race meetings and his race performances were much improved over his qualifying efforts - as Dawn said “if only Cam could go quicker in qualifying he would win more class trophies at the end of the day!”

The committee decided that in honour of Cam’s tardy morning practicing and fighting spirit to improve his class position in the race we would present the trophy to the driver who improved the most from practice to race during the first two races of the Anglesey weekend. The rules are slightly more complicated to ensure that anomalies such as ‘sand-bagging’ in qualifying are identified and removed!

With the removal of several cars at the beginning of the first race and several quick drivers out of position at the back of the grid it meant that not as many drivers as usual were able to improve their positions. In fact after the first race only five drivers had improved their positions, David Jones (5 places), Steven Parker & Paul Rotheroe (2 each) and Jason Hennifer & Rob Philips (1 each). By the end of the second race no one was in positive territory and only Steven Parker and newcomer Louie Dobson had broken even! This meant that the tie-breaker rule came into force, the best improvement in best laps across the two race. After a re-count the gap was 0.008 seconds.

For the second year in succession Steven Parker takes the trophy by this smallest of margins. Congratulations go to Steven and also to Louie who won his first ever trophies in the second and third races – well done to both.

In the absence of Dawn Forbes the trophy was presented by our new North Western Centre Chair, David Jones.

John Leck

Image above courtesy of Oliver Thomas