Sarah Bennett-Baggs picked up a class win in her Adrian Flux sponsored Porsche 911 SC at the weekend in her debut in the HSCC 70’s Roadsports championship on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.
In Saturday mornings qualifying the 70’s Roadsports joined another grid to qualify amongst 60 classic cars. Qualifying was red flagged due to an incident involving the coming together of two Lotus Elans but Sarah had secured enough laps to qualify 3rd in her class and 4th on the grid overall. Some controversy post qualifying over the flat wing on Sarah’s Porsche SC being legal, caused her to be moved to the invitation class.
The race kicked off in dry conditions, on the rolling start the two front runners father and son duo Julian and Charles Barter took off from Luffield leaving the rest of the grid playing catch-up. Sarah chased the leader pack fighting off challenges from the Porsche 968, Lotus Elan and the Ford Capri of Nic Strong. At the chequered flag the Pink Panther crossed the line three hundredth of a second ahead of fellow class contender Strong in the Ford Capri to finish 1st in class, and 5th overall in the race. Richard Plant won the race outright in his Morgan Plus 8.
Sarah commented “That was a hard fought class win on Saturday, Nic certainly made me work for it, but the circuit suits the car and I wasn’t going to let that Capri past at any cost! It is very easy to over drive and lose it with a 911, so I had to stay calm under the increasing pressure of Nic breathing down my neck. I was very pleased to see the chequered flag. The HSCC have been very friendly and welcoming today, I am sure we will be back.”
Sarah will be back out in the Pink Panther in the 70’s Roadsports at the Oulton Park Gold Cup.
