ROCKINGHAM RETURN

The BRSCC Midland Centre returns to Rockingham this weekend for the first of two ‘club’ meetings this season at the Corby Speedway. There are 18 races on the two-day timetable and they offer an eclectic mix of tin-top, sports car and retro single seater racing.

Saturday’s schedule features the novices in this year’s Autosport Caterham Academy who head to Rockingham with one wet Brands Hatch race under their belts. For first time racers they handled the greasy Brands track well, an experience they can put to good use at what looks like being a wet weekend at Rockingham! Charles Bowmont and Andy Welch were the respective group winners and they will both be looking to build on that success.

The remaining races tomorrow are shared between two Porsche Club GB Championships – the Porsche GT3 Cup and the Porsche Club Championship. Scot Oly Mortimer, Graeme Mundy and Steven Liquorish are the form drivers in the GT Cup, while Mark Sumpter is dominating the Club Championship having not been off the podium all season.

Ford Racing UK have both of their championships on parade at Rockingham with double headers for each. With the Competition Car Insurance Dunlop Ford Fiesta Championship being split into different races across two groups of classes it means that Fords dominate Sunday’s timetable with 6 of the 11 races.

Three drivers have put down strong markers in the Fiesta Championship. Newcomer John Langridge has won every Class A race while the winning runs of Scott Baines (Class B) and David Grady (Class C) only came to an end at Brands Hatch at the hands of Nik Barton and Matthew Parr respectively.

The S&G Response Ford XR Challenge is predominantly a North West based championship with the majority of rounds at Oulton Park or Anglesey, so Sunday will be something of an ‘away day’ for them. Mark Robinson tops the XR2 standings and John-Ifan Jones the XR3is.

The grids for the Design911.com Porsche Championship continue to grow round by round and 25 will line-up on the grid for the first of two races on Sunday. The Boxster title is Dave Clark’s to lose as he has won all eight rounds to date. Matters are much closer in the 924’s where Austrian exile Alfred Piesinger leads the chasing pack of Jayson Flegg, Steve Brown, Adam Croft & Alistair Kirkham.

Taking part in their first BRSCC club meeting is the Production GTi Series, for VW Golf GTi Mk2s, who have joined the BRSCC stable this year. The four races to date have produced three different winners – Simon Hill, Andy Knowlton and Nick Porter – so it is proving to be a very competitive series.

Bringing some single-seater and ‘retro’ action to the proceedings will be the assorted cars of the 500 Owners Association, which date back to the very early days of the BRSCC. Such manufacturer names as Cooper, Parker Kieft, Martin and Arnott will be rolling back the years in a 15 minute race.

The meeting will be the first time a QR code appears on the cover of a programme which when scanned with a Smartphone will take the user directly to the live timing screens.