Reports > Walter Hayes Trophy, Silverstone Nov 2024
A winn for Simms and strong showing by Walker at the '24 WHT
November again and time for the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford extravaganza at Silverstone. As is customary, the Wayne Poole Racing team arrived with a strong squad of cars and drivers and looking to run at the front both in the overall competition and in the races for the older cars. This year the team had four Classic Auction Review backed Van Diemens – and RF99 and an RF01 for the front running pair of Josh Fisher and Alex Walker, an RF89 for Benn Tilley and a Merlyn MK20 for Benn Simms. They were joined by James Colborn in his usual Van Diemen RF07.
The event began on the Saturday with four heats. In Heat 1 Alex qualified on pole with Benn Simms in a very competitive twelfth and a good indicator of performances yet to come. In the race Alex was in a three way battle for the win, eventually finishing third on the road but a track limits penalty dropped him to sixth. Benn got a bit swamped at the start to hold on and finish seventeenth.
The rest of the WPR squad were out for Heat 4 where Josh qualified on the front row just behind Rory Smith's Medina Sport JL18. Benn Tilley was a strong twelfth with James a couple of rows back in his AIM supported car. In the race Josh was involved in a four way scrap for the lead until a collision on lap 5 saw him drop down the field, recovering to take ninth on the road. Josh was later disqualified from the event. Ben and James both had good races to finish seventh and twelfth repectively.
Benn Simms lined up thirteenth on the grid for the Last Chance race and made a blinding start to move up to fifth at the end of Lap 1 and his forward progress in the elderly Merlyn continued, running a comfortable third during the middle of the race, However, as some of the faster cars moved through the field Ben was relegated to a, still impressive, sixth at the end.
Benn Tilley and James Colborn were both in Semi Final 1 and both finished near where they started in 13th and 22nd places.
Starting on Row 6, Alex had his work cut out in Semi Final 2 but in a controlled display of fast driving latched on to the lead group of seven cars early on. This became a lead group of five with positions changing on every lap. Alex finished fifth on the road which became fourth after Luke Cooper received a penalty. Benn Simms go the Merlyn up to 25th and miss out on the final but there was another race to come for him.
In the final of the Carl Hamer trophy race for the oldest of the Formula Fords, Benn Simms started fourth but grabbed the lead at the start and, despite being under continual pressure throughout the race, held it to the end to take an excellent win.
In the final of the Janet Cesar memorial trophy race, for Formula Fords built prior to 1998, Benn Tilley ran with the lead group for the entire race finsihing sixth.
And so to the Grand Final. Despite starting eighth, Alex quickly got onto the back of the lead group and held station for the first few laps. During the middle of the race he ran third and, as the final laps approached, moved up to second and began to dispute the lead. Alex briefly took the lead at Copse before running wide and dropping back and ran out of time to make another surge back to the front and eventually finished fifth. Fastest lap was a small consolation though. Meanwhile, Benn Tilley made a good start but then fell back into a large group of cars and eventually finished 27th but only 15 seconds behind the leader in a 15 lap race – a good result for the older Van Diemen.
Finally, in the HSCC Allcomers Closed Wheel race Steve Bracegirdle was out in his Mini Cooper S and ran well to finish eighteenth and fourth in Class A.
