Justin Roberts was joined by Mike Heath and Nicole Drought for the MSVT Trackday Championship/Trophy rounds
Justin Roberts and Mike Heath have been entering their EP3 Honda Civic Type R into both the MSVT Trackday Championship and MSVT Trackday Trophy throughout 2023.
For the final round at Kent’s Brands Hatch, Roberts invited along guest driver, Nicole Drought, to help with the Trophy side of the weekend.
The team has been running an EBC Brakes Racing Apollo Big Brake Kit and SR-11™ sintered endurance race pads for some time now. With several victories this year, they have been at the sharp end of the standings throughout.
You can read how the team got on at Brands in their own words below.
“With the final rounds of the MSVT Trackday Championship and Trackday Trophy at Brands Hatch, Honda Civic racer Justin Roberts invited Nicole Drought to share the Drive in the Trackday Trophy.”
Trackday Championship
“First up, though, was the Championship race, with Roberts sharing the driving seat once again with season-long partner, Mike Heath.
“After a steady, damp and changing track, Justin and Mike qualified in 4th place in the EBC Brakes Racing Honda Civic.
“Roberts started the race and maintained the 4th position until the early safety car was deployed due to a track incident. With the pit window open 15 minutes into the 45 minute race, they boxed to complete the driver change in hope of leapfrogging the leaders as they were caught up with the window not yet open as they drove past the entry.
“Mike jumped in the Honda and was net P1 as he exited the pit lane, but immediately lost drive above 4,000rpm. After another pit stop, the car was fixed, but the extra stop meant the guys were well down the order in 28th position. Heath drove superb to bring the car home in 13th place overall.”
Trackday Trophy
“With a tyre change and a refuel, the lads got the car ready for the Trackday Trophy race, which would see extremely talented young Irish racer Nicole Draught partnering Justin for the final event of 2023.
“Nicole flew over from her home in Ireland on Friday morning for some afternoon testing, as this would be the first time she’d seen the Honda race car. With a dry track, she quickly got to grips (quite literally), putting in some very impressive laps times.
“Race day started well for Nicole as she dominated the early stages of qualifying in the Civic. In damp conditions, she was on provisional pole by two seconds for the first fifteen minutes. It was only in the dying minutes of qualifying, with the track drying, that another competitor snatched pole position away, and only by .013 of a second. Justin entered the fray with six minutes remaining, but couldn’t improve due to the traffic volume.
“In the race, Nicole drove around the outside of the pole-sitting Clio Cup car at druids, putting her in a strong position to grab the lead at Graham Hill bend. She immediately eased away and was almost two seconds clear before a spinning car ended up in the gravel, necessitating a safety car intervention and bunching the field back up.
“Nicole kept the lead from the restart, but unfortunately, she was sent wide while lapping three slower cars travelling side-by-side on the start/finish straight, and incredibly avoiding a monumental collision. This allowed the second-place driver to pass. Nicole fought back and boxed with 15 minutes remaining for Justin to chase down the leader. Another safety car hampered Justin’s chance, as on the restart he was caught behind back-markers giving the leader a very clean getaway. So second it was for the Honda at the flag. A fantastic debut from Nicole, proving her talents and we will see her partnering the Civic in 2024.”
– Nicole Drought: “What a weekend! I had felt a bit unwell on the run up to the weekend but once I was in the car, the adrenaline made it all go away. The Civic was so much fun and we could have won that race, only for a bit of bad luck. Really looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish with the EBC Brakes Honda Civic next season.”
– Justin Roberts: “We would like to thank all the sponsors that have helped make this season possible and look forward to joining up with EBC Brakes Racing again in 2024. The help that EBC gives us is quite unbelievable; they’re there with us side-by-side and the product is astounding, the EBC Apollo Big Brake Kit with SR-11™ brake pads are without a doubt the best stopping power I’ve ever felt in my 20 years of competitive motorsport.”
SR-11™ Endurance Pads
A medium-friction sintered endurance motorsport compound that’s targeted for front of street base cars where high ABS effect exists on the car or for the front and rear of race cars with bias controls.
Apollo Balanced Big Brake Kit
EBC Brakes’ new Balanced Big Brake Kits represent the ultimate upgrade in braking performance, offering significant reductions in stopping distances whether used on road or on track.
