TRIPLES FOR MURPHY & PALMER

The BRSCC’s North Western Centre enjoyed a very sunny weekend in Anglesey on 12/13^thMay when they staged no less than 22 races – 6 of these were won by John Murphy and Chrissie Palmer.

Murphy was on the top step of the podium each of the 3 times the Post 89 runners in the Avon Tyres sponsored National and Northern FF1600 Championships took to the tarmac for their triple header meeting. Neil Winn was his closest challenger, finishing runner-up twice after battling with his team mate Martin Short. Second time out a spin at Peel meant Winn was classified sixth. On his final outing Winn came close to snatching the victory. He got alongside Murphy in the braking area at Rocket on each of the final two laps but, being forced to take the outside line, he was unable to make the manoeuvres stick.

In the Pre 90s, Stuart Jones was the man to beat with Nigel Dolan and Ian Parkington his closest pursuers. In their first contest, Jones made the break as Dolan and Parkington tussled in the opening laps before the latter dropped back when he lost second and fourth gears. Next time, Jones took the chequered flag five seconds to the good after his challengers both had spins. Proceedings were halted early due to a collision between Phil Nelson and Andrew MacGregor. Jones failed to make it a hat-trick after Dolan punted him into a spin at The Hairpin on the second tour of their final encounter. Jones rejoined sixth but had such pace that he caught Dolan by the end of lap 11. He even led briefly but Dolan was just over a tenth of a second ahead at the line.

There were three categories of Mazda MX5 providing entertainment in North West Wales. Chrissy Palmer did the hat-trick in the MX5 Cup for Mk3 cars. He was in a class of his own for two races but became embroiled in a thrilling three-way scrap with Luke Herbert and Jordan Stilp when these roadsters appeared for the final time.

The stripped for action MX150Rs made their first appearance at Anglesey. Kevin Dengate and Jonathan Blake tussled for the lead in each of the two scheduled MX150R events. Dengate won both – his goal was achieved by some margin first time around when Blake retired on the penultimate lap after one of his mudguards came detached and ended up entangled in the car’s steering mechanism. He had no such problem when he returned to the tarmac but was unable to quite match Dengate’s pace.

There were enough Mk1 MX5s to require them to be split in to 5 Groups. They then had a quintet of races with two Groups in each. This meant full grids with fabulous dicing right down the order, however in all but one of these encounters the leader broke away to take a comfortable victory. The exception was in Group A v B when James Blake-Baldwin tried everything he knew to prevent Tom Roche taking his second victory of the weekend. Roche defended admirably and was 0.177 secs ahead at the line. Adam Gore also won twice with Brian Chandler taking the other Mk1 laurels.

A healthy 19 cars qualified for a trio of rounds in the CFT Services XR Challenge. Anglesey Circuit instructor, John-Ifan Jones, twice won comfortably but things became interesting due to the reversed grid for the final thrash for these Ford hatchbacks. As Jones battled up the order it appeared as though an oil leak in the engine bay of his Escort ignited and he rolled to a halt on the entrance to Seamans with the underneath of his car alight. Phil Wright was ahead when the red flags came out to allow the fire tender to attend to the conflagration. Steve Poole took a brace of Fiesta class victories while Michael Heath was leading this section when the third event was halted.

Formula Jedi graced the tarmac on two occasions. Andrew Dunn came from behind both times to take the spoils. He was aided on Saturday when a hose came loose on leader Richard Mitcham’s engine; this slowed the pace of last year’s champion. Although he crossed the line fourth, Mitcham’s power unit was too badly damaged for him to return to action on Sunday therefore Dunn was able to demote Matthew Bett on lap 9 to do the double.

The MG Cockshoot Cup made a guest appearance with one race on Saturday’s programme. After a restart when Ashley Woodward heavily “re-styled” his vehicle having come off second-best in a clash with the pit-wall, David Coulthard took the honours.