The first competitive event for 2022 for the RAFMSA Motor Racing squad was for Matt Isherwood, a new RAFMSA member and entering his second season racing cars following a successful karting career.
Supporting British Endurance Championship at Oulton Park saw the Legends Cars National Championship take to the long International layout for no less than three races. Isherwood entered his first non-novice season allowing him to take grid spaces as qualified, rather than starting from the back of the grid as a novice. Ably supported by the Altrincham based GS Needham Racing in the striking looking black with green #98 machine.
In a cloudy but dry qualifying session the drivers took to the track to refamiliarize themselves with the cars and track after a busy off-season. In the short qualifying session Isherwood took provisional pole but was pipped to the post by a late lap from #79 Marcus Pett. Separated by little over 0.1secs they were clear of 3rd by almost 0.5secs.
In the first of three races it was Isherwood with the upper hand on the first lap over former champion #1 Miles Rudman before briefly losing the lead on Lap 2 and retaking on Lap 3 ahead of polesitter Pett and Rudman. A brief safety car period closed the pack up on lap 4 before leaving two racing laps for Isherwood to pull out a small advantage over #13 Jack Parker in 2nd and Rudman in 3rd.
In race 2, unfortunately Isherwood experienced brake failure entering the fast flowing and undulating double apex right hander at Druids. Luckily he was able to keep the car out of the barriers but was forced to retire.
Race three got off to a good start with Isherwood picking up a couple of places on opening lap from his mid-pack starting position. He was forced to the pitlane for a brake bleed after lap 2, fortunately for him the race was red flagged due to an on track incident which allowed him to take the restart for a 6 lap race where he finished in the midfield but used the race as an extended test session due to the brake issues.