Production Cup title goes the way of Faulkner and Parry
In recent years, the Production Cup has provided plenty of close action and this year has been no exception as Pat Naylor/ Ian Lawrence and Scott Faulkner/gareth Parry were separated by just one point in their respective Mitsubishi Lancer E9s going into the event.
Less than a second separated the pair on the opening test, where Faulkner made the right tyre choice and took a slight advantage.
Unfortunately, Naylor’s car broke a driveshaft on the second stage and thumped a bank, costing almost half a minute. With the offending item changed in service he returned to the fray but departed the event soon after.
From then on Faulkner just needed to finish to take the win, which he duly did after setting fastest class time on every stage to take the championship honours. “We’ve had no issues all day, but this isn’t the way I wanted to win it,” he admitted.
It wasn’t a good day for the Historic Cup contenders as Steve Ward/mike Crawford, who only needed a finish to win class H3, retired their Ford Escort Mk2 on the final stage while David Gathercole/ken Bills rolled their Escort RS1600 early on.
Ross Brusby/dave Robson had a great run to finish as first two-wheel-drive crew home in 12th place in their Escort Mk2, as Steve Black/paul Morris were first of the 1400S finishers in their Suzuki Swift despite a late spin and puncture.
A new gearbox took some getting used to but Dale Glover/james Wood made good use of it to win the 1400C category. They were followed home by brothers Matthew and Daniel Evans who took heed of the advice from their father, Ricky, a two-time Gold Star winner. They adopted a steady approach to be first of the BTRDA class crews home, finishing as championship class winners in the process.