BRSCC ENTERTAINS ON AN EVENTFUL OULTON PARK RACE DAY
On a sunny Spring day in Cheshire, the British Racing & Sports Car Club made its second visit of the season to the Oulton Park International circuit, with four championships battling through an eventful day to produce another entertaining and action-packed day of club motorsport. While Fun Cup brought the endurance factor, Fiestas, CityCar and BMWs thrilled with the sprints.
Competing at their spiritual home, the Fun Cup Endurance Championship produced a superb 28 car entry for its second round of the season, but the action kicked off as early as lap two when Red River Sport and Team FFS tangled at Druids, forcing the first safety car to appear. When back to green, the pair of Morpheus team cars and UVio/ Hoffman’s Motorsport wasted no time getting to the front, quickly before a brief second safety car was called, but leading trio quickly gapped the rest on the restart.
UVio leapt in front of the Morpheus pair after the first pit window, while VapeClub with EDF drove forwards into third thanks to young gun Ted Bradbury. After another short safety car thanks to car #97 stopping before Druids, UVio led from Morpheus 2Rent, VapeClub, GCI Racing and defending champs Olympian-GRD with half distance looming. The Morpheus FNS sister car managed to rise to P2 in the lead group as the two hour mark ticked over, leaving a thrilling battle amongst the front runners.
More safety cars were called either side of crossing 90 minutes remaining, with the lead traded between UVio, Olympian and Morpheus 2Rent in such a short space of time. Morpheus 2Rent were hit with a stop-go penalty with just under an hour to go which put them out of contention, leaving UVio and Olympian to once again fight it out for victory, but still battled with the pair and former champions Sheradize UK. After the final pit window, Olympian had the lead and stayed there until the flag, but second place would not prove to be secure for UVio.
They lost out in the final laps to a charging Sheradize UK whose quick times helped them take second with just minutes to spare, UVio had to settle for third in the end, with GCI Racing fourth and Axiametrics completing a quiet race with fifth place.
There was drama in the first AIRTEC Motorsport Fiesta ST240 Championship race of the day when pole sitter John Cooper had to defend hard from Gary Miller and George Foxlow throughout the first half of the 20 minute encounter. However, with six minutes remaining, contact between Cooper and Miller send the former into a sizeable accident, bringing a premature halt to the race. With a result declared, Miller was given the victory from Foxlow in second, followed by David Nye in third from Alastair Kellett and Connor Blackburn. Jason O’Connell continued his strong start in Club class from Luke Warr and Maggie Webster.
Race two was almost as eventful, with clouds of dust kicked up exiting turn one and a safety called eight minutes in for Harry Walsh’s blown engine. Restarting with five minutes left, Miller headed Kellett and Lucas in the lead fight, but the Irishman let the pair dice between themselves for the remainder of the race, holding for to claim his second victory of the day from Kellett, Blackburn, Reynolds and Foxlow in the top five in Pro class. In Club class, it was O’Connell’s to lose once again, top of the pile in class once again from Dan Robinson and Freddie Hunter-Johnson.
The Nankang Tyre BMW SuperCup Championship produced a strong entry covering both the 1 Series SuperCup and Compact Cup cars across the board. Race one saw Millie Hart put in a superbly controlled drive to resist race long pressure from Thorburn Astin for the overall and 1 Series race lead, competing a lights to flag performance for her first win. Aydan Hassan was a comfortable third overall in class from Simon Waterfall and Danny Wilkinson. In the Compacts, defending champion Connor Grady picked up the win while Gareth Claydon was runner-up ahead of Adam Wright, Max Noble and Joe Doble.
After a red-flagged first start, Astin took the lead from the restart of race two and managed to streak away for the duration, capturing his first points-scoring victory of the season by 1.7 seconds seconds, while a delighted Simon Waterfall claimed a podium finish with P2 ahead of Hassan and Hart. Joe Doble charged to a Compact Cup class win behind them, followed by Max Noble in second, then Joe’s father Mike Doble, Ethan Woods and Peter Smith in the top five.
Just one of the scheduled Nankang Tyre CityCar Cup Championship races was able to be completed at Oulton Park on the day, but the race that did take place was a real thriller from start to finish. Rookie Ben Spencer jumped to the lead from the front row, but Brady Pollock led by the end of lap one, before the pair were joined by Stuart Bliss, Richard Jepp, Alex Foden, Alistair May and co to make up a frantic leading group. After some initial heavy scrambling, Bliss kept the race in his command to win overall and in Student Motorsport for Boston College, ahead of Spencer, Jepp, Pollock and Foden.
Race two had two attempts to get underway, but sadly due to accidents that caused red flags on both attempts, and thanks to timetable constraints, the race had to be abandoned and declared a non-contest.
Written by Scott Woodwiss
