JEC XJS Championship - Donington Park 19^th June 2005:

Twenty-six cats purred on the grid for this race with 'last time out winner' Gary Davis, in the Jaguar Monthly XJS, on pole. Returning from a break was Steve Davis 2nd and the 'grand master' Derek Pearce 3rd.

Gordon Bobic of Camberley, came out onto the track at qualifying and 500 metres later pulled into the pit-lane when he realised he had left some wood and a couple of cans of petrol in the back of his car. I think he sneaked off to B&Q at some point?

With the Championship being so close, Sean Collin 65 pts, Gail Hill 64 pts and Derek Pearce 61 pts, it is still open season with plenty to play for, so from the off there was once again a typical XJS mad dash into the first bend Redgate. It was the unlucky Tracey Barker who lost out when a hose blew and she ended up in the kitty litter. Red flags were then waved like a Chinese new year celebration, and the race was halted while Tracey's car was retrieved.

When the race was restarted, with a now reduced time length, Gary Davis was fractionally ahead of Steve Davis, whose new engine came from 'E-Bay'. What's all that about!!

These two were nose to tail with some really exciting racing, then on lap 5 Steve executed an excellent over-taking manoeuvre to pass Gary and went on to take Class G and race win by 3 seconds.

Derek Pearce was 3rd and even had time to spin coming out of McLeans Corner, he can't resist showing off.

Brothers Lawrence and Dave Ball with John Griffin finished 12th,13th and 14th with less than a 2 second gap across the line.

James Ramm was named 'Driver of the Day' when he qualified 8th and finished 6th in only his second race of the season. Well done James.

Since the start of the season Gail Hill has always had the upper hand over Gary Hastings, however today was going to see a change in fortunes as Gary took the Class D win this time finishing 8th and Gail had to settle for 9th. These two do love a battle.

Other Class winners were Gordon Bobic (F) and Martin Sutherland (E).

Report by STEVE GOREY (JEC)