Wow, what an end to the first season of the CSL Cup, truly exciting racing in both races and two deserving champions at the end.

Week end started on a low point really, Geoff Steel wasn’t able to repair his car from the incident at Croft when Jamie Martin side swiped him out at Sunny Out and John Harrison who was battling Darren Humphrey in the standard class has sold his car to a new driver for next season who sadly couldn’t make the final round this year so that left us with a thinner grid than we’d have liked for the last race. The good news was that Duncan White had done some further work on his car with more power and less weight so moved up into the modified class for only his second ever race weekend.

Qualifying
Qualifying was a close affair, Mark Steward, Jamie Martin and Dan Stringfellow setting early pace with 1.15’s with John Thorne sneaking into the 1.14’s, then Mark swapped with his regular driving partner Nick Foster who proceeded to put in a blinding lap of 1.14.1 on his first lap. Thorne responded getting the gap down to 0.2 with a 1.14.3 but wasn’t able to better the British GT ace. With Mark and Nick sharing the driving it left the grid with Thorne on pole, with Stringfellow, Steward and Martin behind.

 

Race 1
Race one began as with most of the season with Thorne getting a terrible start allowing Steward, Stringfellow, Martin, Gill and Humphreys to dart ahead, Steward made the best of the start and quickly built up a small lead with Martin and Stringfellow chasing. Thorne then spun at turn two leaving the group to head off with a close fight between Steward and Stringfellow to ensue. Humphries defied his standard class car credentials to spend the next few laps fighting with the more powerful modified class cars. Steward then built a decent lead over Stringfellow and Martin leaving Thorne to try to claw back from dead last, and claw back he did, lapping a second faster than the field Thorne slowly went back the field overtaking Humphries, Martin and eventually Stringfellow but with three laps to go came across a spinning White at the exit of turn 1 to push him onto the grass to avoid Whites car, Steward went on to secure a convincing win.

 

Race 2
Race 2 began with Thorne on pole but with Nick Fosters practice time nearly half a second faster it was only a matter of time before he caught up from 4th on the grid. The start was interesting, Martin got off to an excellent start but proceeded to ram into the back of Stringfellow then swerve across the circuit to block Foster as he raced up the inside, this allowed Stringfellow to nip into the lead ahead of Thorne. Down the main straight Thorne managed to go round the outside of Stringfellow into the Esses under brakes, Stringfellow fought back at the exit, the cars touched and Stringfellow was thrown into a spin. Martin drove round for a lap with Stringfellows bumper attached to the front of his car and subsequently retired. Gill (who was absent from race one with gearbox issues) stayed out of trouble had an early fight with Humphreys and White before getting past Humphries on lap five. Up ahead the excitement was evident from the commentators voice, Foster set about reeling in Thorne and the gaps came down lap after lap, eventually Foster was glued to Thornes rear bumper once getting past at Seer only for Thorne to tuck back inside and take the lead again. After 7 nose to tail laps the pair crossed the line in that order with Foster a mere 0.61 seconds behind.

 

So now the dust has settled the CSL Cup has its first two champions. Dan Stringfellow is the new overall CSL Cup series champion. Dan drove supremely well all season, picking up wins at almost every round and thoroughly deserves the crown to add to his previous racing accolades. Darren Humphr in his first full season of racing recovered from an early crash in the first round at Rockingham to steadily recover and take his standard class car right to the modified ones on the grid. With John Harrison unable to complete the series he drove impeccably albeit with another standard class competitor to race against at the final round to take the standard class crown – not bad for a first seasons racing. Congratulations to them both.

 

2009 Series Standings

 

And what is planned for the CSL Cup in 2010?
Most important news is the inclusion of the E92 M3 into the series. When we set the series up it was always planned to cater for the more modern BMW M3’s starting with the E46 and now the E92 M3 is firmly out at least one team, Thorney Motorsport will be preparing an E92 M3 for 2010 driven by John Thorne. If we get enough entries for the E92 then a separate class will be created buts its likely the E46 M3 will still be the mainstay of the series for the foreseeable future. Subtle changes are being planned to the technical regulations with some vehicle weights being dropped to allow items such as composite doors to be used and the potential idea of making the standard class more standardised and allowing them to run on road legal track tyres rather than slicks to control costs. The series aims of cost effectivness will be paramount, standard BMW engines, gearboxes, Vanos units, ECU's, and differentiasl will remain.

Really big news for next season is the confirmation of a TV package for the series together with prize money for drivers, we are planning for a prize purse worth £2500 per weekend with £500 going to the race winners. Race calendar will be confirmed soon but a minimum of 8 rounds are planned with the potential of a BMW Festival and a round in mainland Europe.

To be kept up to date with developments please drop us an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we will ensure you are kept updated with developments.