At the Oulton Park meeting on the 12^th June competitors in the CNC Heads Sports/Saloon Championship competed for the prestigious Dave Simpson Memorial Trophy. This must be one of the most sought after trophies in club motorsport and is eagerly competed for each year.

The trophy was presented to the Centre by Margaret Simpson in honour of her husband Dave. Back in the early days of the series, as it was then, Dave was instrumental with Ken Mitchell and myself in setting up the championship. With grids of perhaps 10/12 cars back then it did not look too good for the success of the Championship. However with Dave’s encouragement and enthusiasm the Championship grew from strength to strength and within a few years we saw grids of over 30 regularly. Unfortunately Dave has not seen how strong the Championship has become in recent years. There cannot be many Championships this strong in their 38^th season. 

The Trophy was decided by the driver who wins his or her class and has the greatest speed differential to the driver coming second. This basically translates to the driver who is most dominant in their class. The only proviso is that there must be at least three starters (and of course at least two finishers!).

This year the outcome was incredibly close, perhaps the closest ever! Unfortunately for four of the classes the battles at the head of the classes was very close so they were not in the running for the award. Paul Rose in his Saker often wins his class by a country mile but this time he was pegged back by a slightly tardy start and it was several laps before he took the lead. Graeme Smith in his scrapyard engined Mazda MX5, helped perhaps by the retirement of David Bird took class F by a tidy margin. These two were in the running for the award, when the results were scrutinised it was found that Paul Rose took the award by the tiniest of margins.

Margaret Simpson was on hand to present the trophy to Paul who was very pleased to receive it for the second time.