HISTORY MADE AT OULTON PARK RACE DAY
Riley Phillips became the youngest driver to win a Fun Cup Race in the UK after the Despatchbay.com car he shared with Andy Bicknell and Marcus Clutton took the honours at Oulton Park on 13th April when the BRSCC’s North Western Centre staged their first race meeting of 2019 during which the “Island” configuration was used.
The Truman’s car crewed by Colin Kingsnorth, Julian Bricknell, Jonathan Hoad and Richard Wedd was the early leader of the 4 hour Fun Cup encounter with a 12 secs advantage after an hour but, as is usually the case in this branch of motorsport, their advantage was wiped out by a Safety Car 20 minutes later. When the contest resumed, the DespatchBay.com car charged up from eighth to take the lead.
Differences in fuel strategy enabled 2 Rent Dominos (Henry Dawes and Chris Hart) and JPR Uvio (Fabio Randaccio and Farquini Deott) to be the teams battling out front during much of the third hour but Truman’s and Despatchbay.com were contesting the win once more with 40 minutes to go although the latter lost a couple of places at the final pit-stop. They were back in-front with 15 minutes on the clock when they overtook 2 cars the lap after the Safety Car pulled in for the final time. Almost immediately JPR Uvio loomed large into their mirrors and started repeatedly draw alongside exiting the Island Hairpin but Despatchbay.com’s Clutton kept them behind.
In the frantic final stages, Truman’s made contact with another car and dropped out of contention as a result. JPR Uvio also suffered bodywork damage allowing Despatchbay.com to pull away to take the win as JPR Uvio held off 2 Rent Dominos to claim the runner-up position by just 0.147 secs.
The key moment of the opening round of the Avon Tyres Northern Formula Ford 1600 Championship occurred right at the start when the Van Diemen of Ross Martin got the jump on pole-sitter Rory Smith’s Medina JL18. Smith was all over the back of Martin but couldn’t find an opportunity to pass. Jack Wolfenden was on the tail of the leaders throughout in a thrilling 3-way fight.
These same drivers returned to the podium at the end of their second race although, on this occasion, Smith stood on the top step after executing the move of the day to pass Martin on the high-speed run from Knickerbrook through Clay Hill.
Andrew Schofield was the first of the Super Classic category contenders to see the chequered flag on both occasions in his Reynard FF89.
The other regional Championship to get underway was the Hyperdrive ST-XR Challenge. The duel for victory in the first of these two encounters had a dramatic conclusion when Greg Speight, who had been third in the early stages, caught Adam Brown on the last lap. The two XR2s disappeared over the brow of Clay Hill exchanging paint and there was still hardly anything between them at the finish with Brown getting the verdict by 0.001 sec.
William Heslop – another XR2 driver – was a close third and, from that position on the second grid of the day, he launched himself into the lead. Brown passed him on lap 6 at Cascades with Speight getting a run on both down Lakeside Straight which put him in position to go for the lead at the Island Hairpin but as he and Brown focused on one another, Heslop was able to get back ahead to take the win.
In both contests there were class wins for Chris Rowlands, Jason Hennefer, Mark Noble and Andy Mellor.
Such was the entry in the Nankang Tyres BMW Compact Cup that 3 races were required to give everyone 2 outings. Ian Jones and Steven Dailly lined up on the front row of the last of these having each taken a win earlier in the day. An incident at Cascades on the opening lap meant neither was able to claim the double as Jones took a trip across the gravel and Ben Huntley got ahead of Dailly amid the confusion. Huntley was able to keep Dailly at bay for the duration while Jones recovered to be classified sixth.
Across the trio of BMW events there were visits to the podium for David May, Keith Towers and Tom Griffiths.
Although the weather remained dry, a relentlessly strong icey wind blew all day and the BRSCC wish to thank all the marshals for their dedication and endurance.
You can find a detailed breakdown of the weekend’s results at Oulton Park here OULTON PARK RESULTS
Dave Williams
