AN ANGLESEY TRIPLE EASTER TREAT

John Murphy and Martin Short established a healthy lead in the first Post-89 encounter before Short retired from their tussle due to a problem with his gear linkage on lap 8. Murphy was thus able to take a comfortable win. With the results of race 1 determining the grid for race 2, Short had to start from the penultimate row thus it was down to Chris Chisnall to keep Murphy on his toes. He was more than up to the task as he moved ahead from the start and kept the previous day’s victor at bay until Murphy outbraked him into the Rocket complex on lap 4. All was not lost for Chisnall as he snatched the lead back at the start of the final lap when it was too late for Murphy to respond. Chisnall returned to the top step of the podium later in the day after a spin by Murphy delayed the rest of the field at the end of the second tour. Murphy came home runner-up with Martin Short, who had played catch-up all day after Friday’s mechanical failure, third.

John Loebell made one of his sporadic appearances in a Pre-90 Van Dieman. The Medina Sports boss took the honours unchallenged on Good Friday. He made the break in the early stages as it took some time for Nigel Dolan to wrest second from the fast starting Andrew Thomas. Dolan made amends in Saturday morning’s thrash by leaping off the grid with such alacrity that he was 5 lengths ahead at the first corner! He was reeled in by Loebell who got better drive out of Rocket on lap 5 and was in front when they reached Peel. They remained in that order until the end. The third outing for the Pre-90 cars saw a surprise win for Chris Williams’ Class E PRS. He was in the right place at the right time when Loebell and Dolan both left the tarmac in separate incidents. The former recovered to charge up the order from 14th at the end of lap 2 to finish 4th – having briefly relieved Bruce Jones of 3rd on the last lap. Dolan meanwhile retired after an “off” at the Corkscrew with a quarter of the race remaining.

Mark Robinson and John-Ifan Jones both took 3 victories out of 3 in the Fiesta XR2 and Escort XR3 classes of the XR Challenge. Robinson took the chequered flag first each time although Steve Poole ran him close at the second time of asking. Poole’s crew had worked hard overnight to repair his car after a first corner collision with Simon Sheridan on Friday. He raced through from the back of the grid to put Robinson under immense pressure in the closing stages – he managed to nose ahead on the run through Church at one point but was unable to make the move stick. From the partially reversed grid for the final encounter it was Poole who made it into the lead ahead of Robinson but then his car ground to a halt in a cloud of smoke.

The Irish Touring Car Championship brought some varied and often quite spectacular cars over from the Emerald Isle. In their opening event the Super Touring class Honda Civic of Philip Burdock made the initial running ahead of a frantic three-way dice between Martin Tracy (Sierra Cosworth), Simon Maher (BMW Compact) and Barry Rabbitt (Civic). Eventually Tracy broke free and, lights ablaze, reeled in Burdock who he powered past to take the win. In the Touring category Norman Fawcett got the upper hand over Keith Rabbitt’s similar Honda Integra after a fraught battle during the first 8 laps.

There was no sign of the Easter Bunny at Anglesey last weekend but the Rabbitts hopped on to the top step of the podiums in both classes when the Irish Touring Cars returned to the track to close the programme. Barry was first Super Touring car home after Tracy closed down a 7 second gap only to spin down to 7th on the last lap while Keith won in the Touring category.

To view the full results CLICK HERE

Dave Williams