ADE POWERS TO CADWELL VICTORY

After the morning qualifying session, the Arrowpak Euro Saloons & Sports Car Championship got proceedings underway with 20-minute blast around 13 laps of the 2.17 mile Lincolnshire track. Andy Robinson’s Ford Falcon was the first man home, just 2.4 seconds ahead of championship debutant Garrie Whittaker, piloting a BMW E36 – a fine performance from the new boy! Another BMW, Dennis Crompton’s M3, was third, a further 44 seconds back.

An impressive grid of 25 Mighty Minis were up next and it was current champion Chris Slade who carried the day speeding through 10 laps during the allocated 20 minutes of race time. Northampton’s Ade Tuckley was just a second behind Slade. David Marcussen took the final podium place. The championship leader coming to Cadwell was Emmerdale soap star Kelvin Fletcher, who has surprised everyone this season in what is his first year of racing. Fletcher maintained his promising start coming home in fourth, less than 3 seconds behind the race winner.

After the lunch-break, the Logson Group Porsche Championship made the first of their two appearances of the afternoon. Leeds' Richard Styrin held off the challenges of Gerry Taylor and Snetterton triple race winner Richard Sykes to take the chequered flag and his first win of the season. Alastair Kirkham, Sean Siddall and Simon Hawksley were one, two & three in the 924 class. Kirkham won comfortably but Siddall and Hawksley enjoyed a tremendous battle with only a seventh of a second separating the pair as they crossed the line.

The cars of the BIGprofile Sports 2000 Championship were the next to line-up on the starting grid. Paul Streat set a new Pinto Class A track record taking his Swift DB2 around the circuit in just 1:34.306 seconds, and in doing so won the race. Alaric Gordon was second in his Carbir CS2 and Damian Griffin third, although he did have the satisfaction of recording the fastest lap of the day, 1:34.203, which was also a Class B record at Cadwell.

As they always do, the Super Mighty Minis put on a show to entertain the Lincolnshire public. You could have thrown a blanket over the top two – Chris Morgan was the victor but his margin of victory was just .393 seconds from Gary Patterson, who set the fastest lap. 2011 champion Elliot Stafford was only another second back in third.

The Duratecs of the BIGprofile Sports 2000 Championship got through 21 laps during their 30 minutes of race time. The experienced Mike Jenvey was the race winner in his Jenvey-Gun TS6. The MCR of Ascot’s Patrick Sherrington was less than 2 seconds behind and Robert Oldershaw brought his Gunn TS11 home in third. Mike Turner won the DB class from Paul Martin
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The next out were the Arrowpak Euro Saloons for the second of their 20-minute tours. Andy Robinson completed the double but this time Vaughan Fletcher’s Impreza was second. Dennis Crompton maintained his third place. Garrie Whittaker won Class D in coming 4^thand Ilsa Cox Class B in 5^th. Chris Boon took class D honours in both races.

Ade Tuckley turned the tables on Chris Slade in the second Mighty Minis race to power to victory and collect a great points haul for the day. Bath’s David Marcussen showed great consistency to hold off the challenge of Kit Stevens & Kelvin Fletcher to secure a double of third place finishes.

It was a case of ‘as you were’ in the second Logson Group Porsche Championship race as the top three in both the Boxster and 924 classes were a mirror image of the first race. In Boxsters, Richard Styrin won from Gerry Taylor and Richard Sykes, while Alastair Kirkham won from Sean Siddall and Simon Hawksley.

The final race of the day was for the Super Mighty Minis and again it was quite a spectacle. Gary Patterson took a well-deserved victory from Chris Morgan and this time the gap was even smaller – just .381 seconds! Elliot Stafford again had to be content with third place, but this time he narrowed the deficit to less than a second.