NEWTONS ROCK THE BOAT ONCE MORE IN THE 1400 CLASS
The absolute star performers in the classes were twins Christopher and Anthony Newton who drove the doors off their 1400cc Vauxhall Nova to win Class A and bag 16th overall as they humbled many more powerful cars.
The Newtons made the long haul from East Sussex worthwhile on their first competitive outing for nearly six months and took control of the class from the opening stage when they went half a minute quicker than any of their class rivals. Their prodigious speed through the chicanes matched the very fastest cars and they simply extended their lead stage by stage to end the day more than two minutes clear of the Opel Corsa of Nicky Cowperthwaite and James Wood.
It was much closer in the 1600cc division where just four seconds decided the class after a tremendous day-long battle between the Ford Fiesta R2 of
Alex Cannon and Alan Carfrae and the Peugeot 106 Maxi of Ben and Andrew
Wilkinson. It was nip and tuck all day and the balance turned in Cannon’s favour when he eight seconds faster on stage six. It was all square on SS7 when darkness fell and a mighty effort from Wilkinson on the final stage trimmed the final margin back to four seconds.
Josh Payton’s superb handling of his Ford Escort Mk2 ensured a resounding Class C win for the Bristol driver and his co-driver Jamie Vaughan. Not only that, but also they netted a place in the overall top 10. They had almost four minutes in hand over the rest of the two-litre class.
Barry Morris and Marc Fowler dominated the over two-litre twowheel-drive class in their Darrian T90
GTR on their way to fourth overall while Thomas Barlow and Robert De Belder topped the class for two-litre H-pattern gearbox cars in their Honda Civic Type R. Paul Gorge and Daniel Hurst headed the Mazda MX-5 division.