Saturday 27th April 2002 saw the first round of the inaugural John Cooper Challenge event for the new MINI.
The challenge comprises of a mixture of events, with two hill climbs, two sprints and three races

The setting was Wiscombe park which is one of the most technically demanding hill climbs, having a mixture of long and short straights, left and right hand bends, hairpins and chicanes over its 1000 yard course. It also has an undulating surface that is quick drying on the open sections but remains damp under the trees - as the Coopers were to find out!

The day started early in brilliant sunshine, with the 23 competitors completing two practice runs before the afternoon session where the two timed runs were to take place and the best time from the two runs recorded.

There was a lot of nerves and excitement in the paddock area before the first run, with many of the competitors swapping notes on suspension settings and tyre pressures - there was a real friendly camaraderie as apposed to hot blooded competitiveness!

There was also Tiff Needell and a film crew from Channel 5’s 5th Gear. They are following the exploits of Liz Biagioni, as she is the only woman competing in this years challenge. This put added pressure on her for the day and involved having two cameras attached to her car to catch every moment of her day.

I managed to catch a few words with Tiff, who told me that he thought it was fantastic that the Cooper name was associated with racing the MINI’s again and felt it provides a great opportunity for novice racers to earn their stripes in a variety of motor racing disciplines. He did wish that the series was open to novices alone, however he was pleased that a novice was leading and he hopes that the series will stay as John Cooper evolves the Championship over the coming years.

He thoroughly enjoys the new MINI and would like to see a bigger engine put into it next year, rather than just strapping on a supercharger, he loved the more solid handling that you get with it though compared to the original. Tiff will be competing in ASCAR this year at the Rockingham circuit for Colin Blowers team in his trademark No 5 car. Apart from the MINI’s, there were Porches, Caterhams, single seaters, vintage cars and even a Citroen BX Turbo Diesel taking part in their various championships which kept the day flowing and ensured there was plenty of entertainment in between the MINIs races.

The challenge has competitors from all backgrounds and varying levels of motor racing experience, from the complete novice to seasoned competitors. The morning practice runs were used by the MINIs to get to know the course and see what the limits were, Nick Smith in fact exceeded these limits when he span his car at the tight hairpin causing minor damage to his car.

The quickest driver in the first practice was Steven Meli, who has lots of motor racing experience. This was the more impressive as he had only collected his car the previous Thursday and was still running it in with just 600 miles on the clock. The second practice session saw Barney Craggs take the quickest time, in 51.67 seconds, with Steven Meli second and David Phillips third.

During lunch I had the opportunity to talk with Liz about what made her want to enter the JCC and how she got involved with 5th Gear.
She told me that she had been watching Tiff on Top Gear late last year, taking the challenge car out and liked the look of it so much that she phoned up and ordered hers the next day. It was only a couple of days later that she realised what she had done, but by that time it was too late.

Liz got a call from John Bentley, asking if she would do an interview for the London Evening Standard. During this it was suggested that it would be a great idea to get Tiff involved to give her some coaching, so they went up to Bruntingthorpe Airfield near Leicester, where using cones Tiff laid out Wiscombes course and Liz got some inside knowledge of the circuit.

As soon as lunch was over, it was time for the first of the timed runs where the first points of the championship would be scored. The cars were run in number order, which meant that Julian Maynard had the honour of leading off in his No2 car.

All the cars completed the run without incident and Barney managed to maintain his speed and take the top spot with a time of 50.71 seconds, the only driver to get under the 52-second mark. Steven stayed in second position with 51 seconds dead and Tony Skelton was third fastest with a time of 52.67 seconds.

Every driver improved their times in the 1st run apart from Liz, who unfortunately engaged third instead of first gear coming out of the final hairpin which cost her a couple of seconds, ending up with a time of 54.01 seconds.
It was generally agreed that there was an opportunity to improve times if you took the gate turn quicker and were tidier through the chicanes and everyone was looking forward to their second and final run.

As the time of the second run approached, the weather took a turn for the worse and became very overcast and chilly. The second run took the same format as the first, with Julian going first, however he was not able to improve from his first run.
Glen Chritian (Racer to us) went out 5th and managed to improve his time to 51.55 seconds, which placed him in third.
As he finished his second run, the heavens began to open, and the track quickly dampened.

This was to cost Stephen Campbell, who came out as the rain was falling and under steered under breaking for the gate and went off into the tyre barrier. Stephen was fine however the front of his car suffered some damage and the radiator had seen better days. After the delay the other drivers were a bit more cautious and the only other driver to significantly improve their time was Liz, who managed a 52.69 just before the rain came down.

Andy Waterfall had a time of 52.50 in the first run, however was the 3rd from last competitor to go out and therefore had no chance to improve on his first time.

By: Paul Chapman & Rob Summers