JPR UVIO WIN ANGLESEY 8 HOURS
An 8-hour Fun Cup race was the centrepiece of the BRSCC North Western Centre’s meeting at Anglesey on 17th & 18th August, although there were another 14 races in a thrilling action-packed programme.
The Fun Cup extravaganza began at 3 pm on Saturday and ended in darkness at 11 pm. Star of the show was the JPR Uvio car driven by Fabio Randaccio and Farquini Deott. They hit the front during the second hour and by the sixth there was only one other car on the lead lap – that was the JPR GT Radical entry in the hands of Ellis Hadley, Jonathan Benson and Martin Gibson. An unusually low number of Safety Cars for a Fun Cup race enabled JPR Uvio to display their true pace and they were just a few seconds away from lapping the whole field when the chequered flag came out. The podium was completed by Apollo Motorsport where brother and sister Zoe & Guy Wenham were joined by Ryan Burke.
There were so many entries for the Nankang Tyres BMW Compact Cup Triple Header that they had to switch from the Coastal configuration used by the other competitors to the longer International Layout of the Anglesey Circuit. The first race was won by Ian Jones from Tom Griffiths and Stephen Dailly while in the second, the latter had worked his way ahead of Jones and Griffith to establish a race winning lead within 4 laps. In the final encounter, Dailly and Grffiths started from further down the order and this allowed Matthew Parkes to break away from Jones and Ben Huntley.
Two rounds of the Avon Tyres Northern Formula Ford 1600 Championship saw Davide Meloni take his first ever wins behind the wheel of a Van Diemen JL15 prepared by B-M Racing – much to the delight of the team. Winner of the Super Classic category on each occasion was Ben Edwards (Van Diemen RF92) who was having something of a Busman’s Holiday due to there being no F1 for him to commentate on this weekend. Andrew Schofield took third overall in both races.
Isaac Smith comfortably took the honours in the first two BRSCC Fiesta Championship with MRF Tyres contests. Alastair Kellett followed him home on both occasions. While the latter had a comfortable advantage over third placed David Nye in Saturday’s opening encounter it was a completely different matter in race 2 on Sunday morning as Nye was all over Kellett’s rear bumper throughout with Zachery Lucas keeping both on their toes. In their third and final encounter, Nye charged off into the distance as Smith became embroiled in a big battle over second with Lucas. This became a fight for the lead when Nye pulled into the pits. Smith pulled away for another win in the closing stages.
In the Fiesta Juniors, as Joseph Loake motored off into the distance to take the first set of spoils, Joel Wren dived down the inside of Oliver Turner the second time the field tackled Rocket to take the runner-up position but he only held that place for the blink of an eye as Ted Potts passed the pair of them in what was without doubt the move of the meeting. Shortly afterwards, though, Potts ran wide handing second back to Wren. Following a fair amount of intense dicing in the opening laps of their second and final encounter, Loakes once again established himself in the lead ahead of Turner and Potts.
There were two rounds of the Toyo Tires BRSCC Porsche Championship on the card. In the first, Gary Laurence moved ahead of early leader Nick Hill on lap 2 with Andrew Porter following him through on the next circuit. Hill held on to make it a 3-way dice for the win until Laurence suffered engine failure at Peel Corner and Porter was able to take the victory. Next time out, Hill led from the start but as Porter challenged him the second time they tackled Rocket he spun handing Porter a comfortable advantage over Leigh to take his second win of the day.
The MG Car Club’s Cockshoot Cup made a guest appearance with 2 races on Sunday. Ray Collier was the man to beat in his MG ZR 190 as he finished the first race 10 seconds ahead of the ZS belonging to Paul Clackett. The podium was completed by Michael Ashcroft in a ZR. Later in the day, Collier took another dominant victory from Clackett with Simon Lowery (ZS) coming out on top in the scrap for third.
The BRSCC wished to thank all officials and marshals for their help in enabling such an entertaining weekend of racing to take place. This was despite the heavy rain which fell throughout Friday’s test day and then strong winds which prevailed all weekend.
You can find a detailed breakdown of the weekend’s results at Anglesey here.
Dave Williams
