Mallory Park Crashes & Highlights, MSVR, 6/6/26

An awesome day of racing! And by far the best MSVR meeting I have seen by a considerable margin. The sort of car racing event that Mallory Park deserves I will readily admit that MSVR meetings are not ones that I go out of my way to attend. A lot of their series in recent years have been very endurance based, tend to stick to the same tracks, and just in general have never really done it for me personally. So to get 6 races and have 4 of them provide thrilling battles for the win was not only a surprise given the weather on the day, but was also a shock as 2 of them were endurance style championships The United Formula Ford series rolled into Mallory Park as the headline act and as the modern equivalent today of the British Formula Ford Championship, you could see why. Exhilarating doesn't even cover it. Scarily close perhaps does! Race 1 could have been won by any of the top 8 on the grid, as qualifying separated them all by less than a second, with Joey Foster on pole by 0.061s from Ronan Doherty and Ben Smith 3rd, all covered by a little over a tenth! A ton of shuffling in the race saw the field split into 3 or 4 distinct packs of racing and on occasion bump drafting as well. Foster eventually got a nudge at the hairpin which caused a spin and was eventually finished off by Peter Daly nudging what looked to be a Firman struggling for gears, as more battling for the lead eventually allowed Doherty to wriggle free with the lead, with Smith, Anthony Amato, Charlie Mann, Maris Schulte and Spencer Shinner all squabbling for 2nd place. Doherty won by a comfortable margin by Formula Ford standards, with Amato 2nd and Schulte overcoming a post checkered flag crash in qualifying and rapid rebuild to take 3rd Race 2 saw Foster back in contention, but he and Doherty had gone for wet weather setups with rain visibly only a few miles out. However as the race progressed it was rather obvious that the rain wasn't coming and the two slipped down the field. Slightly slower modern cars however bridged the gap to the older machines meaning that this time we got James Harridge and Will Malins joining Smith, Amato, Foster, Doherty, Mann, Schulte and Shinner, with James Hadfield, Harrison Morrow and Daly in cars that were 35 years older, all fighting for a potential podium too! The rain eventually did arrive but only at the esses. Too late for Foster and Doherty, but just in time to throw race leader Smith off the road, glancing the barrier and giving the lead to Mann. But Grace Bates, Bryan Nathanael and Schulte all slid off at the esses, ending the race early and giving Smith his lead and win back, from 2nd placed Mann and Amato 3rd MSVT's Trackday Championship looked for a long time to be a stalemate between the top 3 of Jack & George Wright's Golf, Michael Rawlings BMW and Matt Swaffer's BMW. But Rawlings slow and steady chipping away of the Wright pairings Golf saw the last 10 minutes consist of some incredible nose to tail racing for the win, with the Golf clinging on to the win to the checkered flag from Rawlings 2nd and Swaffer 3rd. MSVT's Trackday Trophy sadly dipped from 19 cars at the start of the day to 11 by the end of the race itself. Mostly down to reliability and a lap 1 crash that removed 3 cars. Jordan Honeybone and the Tony Semple/Jake Hewlett pairing looked to be the battle for the win, but the John Lyne & Dean Hyde robbed them both off the line for the lead and Honeybone went off on lap 2 before pulling over under the safety car. An incredible bit of driving by George Wright from 9th on the grid saw him become a real threat for the lead as the Semple/Hewlett crew battled back from 6th to narrowly beat the Lyne/Hyde Clio that made sure to make them work for it, but inevitably came 2nd. And Wright took 3rd even having time to spin at the esses right at the end Snetterton Saloons were unfortunately the only down point of the day (other than the fact that we couldn't force the Formula Fords to do a 3rd race). 10 cars. 4 by the days end. Bizarrely, Leonardo Panayiotou retired on the last lap from 1st in race 1, giving Luke Allen the win from Ray Honeybone 2nd and Andrew Godfrey 3rd. But Race 2 was won by Panayiotou this time, Godfrey 2nd and Kathryne Henderson 3rd Club organisation has really let the opening 2 car meetings down here. It was refreshing to see it done right this time. A really good day of racing at Mallory Park. Just a shame so few people were there watching... #motorsport #mallorypark #msv #formulaford #msvr #trackday #cmmcs #brscc #ford #f1 #touringcars #cmmc #barc #750mc #f3 #citroën2cv #crash #crashes #puresound #lemans #wec #imsa #masters #formulaford #ddmc #mastershistoricracing #formula1 #Porsche #jaguar #gt3 #btcc #fail #blytonpark #compilation #britishautograssseries #bas #f3 #doningtonpark #oultonpark #nascar #castlecombe #blytonpark #brandshatch #silverstone #racing #crash #Autograss #crash #rallycross #williams