BTRDA CLUBMANS RALLYCROSS WARD TAKES THE CROWN IN STYLE
Croft
Organiser: Darlington and District Motor Club When: November 6 Starters: 85
On the kind of day that marks out Croft marshals as being the hardiest in the land, Irishman John Ward retained the BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross Championship.
Ward qualified his Peugeot 106 on pole for the Production A final ahead of title rival James Orton and local hotshoe Martin Peters. When Orton and Peters clashed in turn two of the opening lap, Ward was able to slip away at the front, immediately gaining an advantage over the rest of the field and then driving away to take a clear win. Orton worked his way back up the field in a race where several drivers had excursions and eventually placed fifth, but lost the overall title to Ward by 2.5 points.
Graham Rumsey took second place in the final, six seconds behind Ward but with a gap between himself and Peters with Richard Todd fourth, Colin Ramsay sixth and B final winner Fred Ling seventh.
Autocross driver Alex Fawcett topped the Supermodified qualifying order twice to take pole for the A final ahead of Phil Chicken – who non-started after driveline problems – and Tony Lynch.
Michael Boak non-finished Q1 in his Citroen C2 but was fastest in his second race and made it to the A final in fourth place, ahead of Todd Crooks. The final was run in drier conditions than the earlier races, enough to turn the advantage back to the rallycross cars. Lynch led with Marc Jones zipping up from sixth on the grid to run second in his Toyota MR2. Boak was third from B final winner Kieran Curran’s Vauxhall Corsa, Fawcett and Crooks. Curran survived a tankslapper at the end of lap one, but lost a position to Crooks while sorting himself out. Boak zeroed in on Lynch through the second lap and put a pass on the British champion at the start of the third. From there, Boak drew out a 10s lead to take the win from Lynch with Crooks third from Curran and Fawcett.
Through qualifying David Bell played second fiddle to Motorsport News’s rallycross correspondent Hal Ridge among the BMW Minis that ran within the Supermodified field. However, Bell got the class win after Ridge stopped with technical problems early in the final.
Local drivers topped the podium in Juniors, where Tom Constantine beat Morgan Wroot and the SEAT Arosa of Jaidon Bennett .
In Clubman Supercar, ‘Mad’ Mark Watson brought his Citroen Xsara home ahead of James Lyon.
Another of the autocross gang who had a great day out, Lyon set FTD in Q3 with his Nissan Sunny GTI-R and kept Watson honest in the final.
Gary Simpson took the Historic win over Lance Foster and Ryan Stutchbury, the top three comfortably clear of the rest of the field while Leonardo Lyon was just over 16s ahead in the Autocross final.