Following their recent success in Scotland, FPW Racing headed south to Brands Hatch and round four of the 2018 HEL Performance British Motostar Championship. Storm Stacey, once again, produced consistent results taking a second place finish on the Saturday and a third place in Sunday’s televised feature race. 

Friday was really a day of two halves. Storm set the fifth fastest time with his penultimate lap of the opening practice session held in sunny and dry conditions, but an unexpected rain shower occurred prior to the afternoon free practice. 

Storm, along with several other competitors elected to sit and wait for the track conditions to improve. He took to the track with twelve minutes remaining, completed nine laps, and finished the session in third place. 

Qualifying took place early on the Saturday morning (9am) with sunny and dry conditions reinstated. Storm was in contention for the front row of the grid throughout, eventually missing out by just 0.37 seconds to take fifth position and a place in the middle of row two. 

He made an excellent start to the race, leading into the first corner. Jake Archer took the lead by the completion of lap one and marginally increased his lead for several laps. 

By lap five Storm began reeling him back in to set up a potential last lap move for the win. Unfortunately this wasn’t to be as an incident further down the field brought out the red flags and since two thirds distance had been completed, a result was declared, with Storm taking second place on the podium. He set the fastest lap of the race on lap six, meaning he would start Sunday’s 14 lap race from pole position and he also clocked the fastest speed through two of the three speed traps. 

Conditions remained hot and sunny for the feature race on Sunday afternoon. As the start lights went out, Storm took the hole shot and once again swept into any early lead, but as on the previous day, Jake Archer was ahead at the completion of the opening lap. Storm had Asher Durham in close company, and by lap three the pair had lost ground to the leader by just under one second. 

Unfortunately as they duelled over the remaining laps, the gap continued to grow, and the fight was then for second place. Asher held a slight advantage at the completion of lap eleven and back markers came in to play towards the latter stages costing Storm a few tenths of a second. With two laps remaining he was back with Asher but despite his best efforts couldn’t find an opportunity to pass, resulting in him taking a frustrated third place at the chequered flag. 

With eight races now completed (out of 18) Storm maintains second place overall in the championship standings.

Race report and image provided by FPW Racing.