NUTTALL, CALVERT & BLAKE-BALDWIN CLOSE IN ON RESPECTIVE TITLES

Stephen Nuttall is on course for the Tracksport title. Photo: www.snappy-racers.com

Colchester’s Aaron Head was the first driver to taste victory at our Northern Centre’s Croft meeting over the weekend, coming home over five seconds clear of Danny Winstanley in the first outing for the BookaTrack.com Caterham Superlight R300 Championship. Andy McMillan made an impressive return to Caterham racing by completing the podium.

Although Head is the title favourite, matters did not go his way in the second R300 race. Head took the chequered flag but was demoted to third post-race after suffering a 4.8 second penalty for making contact with title rival David Robinson on lap two. The result was that guest driver Jon Barnes inherited the win but the full allocation of points went to Robinson to narrow the gap at the top of the points table.

The clear winner of the Roadsport weekend was Will Smith who triumphed in both of the twenty-minute races to take the overall championship lead with two rounds to go. Henry Heaton was the next best taking a second and third place finish. Lee Bristow was third in the first race and previous champion leader Chris Hutchinson was second in the second outing.

Stephen Nuttall is the champion elect of the 2013 Tracksport Championship after a brace of wins put the kibosh on the hopes of rivals Andres Sinclair and Nick Portlock. Sinclair had to make do with second in the first race with Pete Fortune in P3. Londoner Christian Szaruta maintained his recent good run beating Fortune into second place in Sunday’s race.

Two very close Supersport encounters went the way of Leicester’s Mike Hart. In Saturday’s race Hart beat James Robinson to the line by less than three-hundredths of a second with the veteran Clive Richards third. Richards went one better on Sunday, getting within two-hundredths of a second of Hart. Championship leader Jon Mortimer strengthened his position at the top by taking third.

David Webber did his hopes of securing the Group 2 Pistonheads.com Academy title a power of good by winning the eight lap race, which gives the Farnham driver a six-point lead. However, title rival Paul Aram won’t go quietly and was only a point shy of Webber’s points haul for the weekend by taking second and recording the fastest lap. Robert Ryder kept his slim hopes of title glory alive by taking P3.

The destiny of the Group 1 Academy title is pretty much settled. Only a strange twist of mathematics can now stop Alistair Calvert from being crowned champion at Silverstone next month after the Billinghurst driver took victory yesterday afternoon, while main rival Olly Wigg was excluded from the results. Benjamin Wigg salvaged something from the weekend for the Wigg family coming home in second with Birmingham’s Nick Cozzi in third.

As ever, the BRSCC Mazda MX-5 Championship turned out a strong field and James Blake-Baldwin emerged from the testing triple-header with his championship lead increased by what could prove to be a very valuable six-points, after a hat-trick of race victories.

Brian Chandler threw down the gauntlet by beating Blake-Baldwin to pole for the first race with Alan Henderson third. However, the championship leader quickly redressed the balance once the race started to take the lead on the first lap and it was one he wouldn’t relinquish. Chandler and Henderson did all that they could, but both had to be satisfied with completing the podium in that order.

The second race proved to be more comfortable for Blake-Baldwin with a ‘lights to flag’ victory. Simon Baldwin muscled in on the Chandler/Henderson party, overtaking the pair on the first lap. Try as they might they couldn’t get passed Baldwin with Henderson holding off Chandler to take P3.

Round fourteen proved to be an even more serene win for Blake-Baldwin, although it didn’t start out that way. Continuing his good form from race two, Simon Baldwin was first away and held the lead until Blake-Baldwin overtook him at the hairpin on lap 6. From there on in James was untouchable driving away from the opposition to win by over six seconds. Baldwin hung on gamely in fourth after being passed by Chandler and Henderson, but some mechanical problems on the penultimate lap eventually meant a sixth place finish. Chandler finished second while Alan Henderson had to settle for third.

You can view all the results at CROFT RESULTS