KIRKPATRICK TAKES TWO MORE MG WINS
Reigning MG Trophy champion Sam Kirkpatrick got two more wins in MG Car Club’s curtain raiser. First he beat a strong challenge from early leader Adam Jackson’s fellow MG ZR 190.
“I got a terrible start with loads of wheelspin and Adam got ahead,” Kirkpatrick explained to Motorsport News. “I was trying to catch him but he’s loads quicker than me round the final corner.
“I got onto the back of him and passed him round the outside [at Druids] because there was a backmarker on the inside so I knew if I went round his outside he’d have to let me through.”
Their battle ended early when Jackson later had a trip through Paddock’s gravel.
Race two was much more straightforward for
Kirkpatrick as his frontrunning rivals Jackson, Patrick Booth and Graham Ross started from the pits following a melee at the first attempted get-go.
The MG Cup races also featured frantic battles for first, in this case between 2019 champion Richard Buckley and the invitational entry of Cockshoot Cup regular Karl Green at Brands Hatch for the first time.
Buckley held off Green to win race one, then in race two Green got ahead with an aggressive move that put him and Buckley down to third and fifth respectively. They recovered to finish a close first and second.
The opening Metro Cup race ended in bizarre circumstances as, under a late-race safety car, reigning champion Mark Eales lost first place as he was wrongly directed into the pits. Returning 2017 champion Mike Williams was first home, but the result was amended to give Eales victory. Williams won race two.
Richard Bridge won the opening Midget & Sprite Challenge race, beating returning multiple champion Paul Sibley. Set-up changes got the also-returning Stephen Watkins onto the pace for race two and he beat Sibley after a place-swapping fight. Bridge dropped back in third after his throttle cable jammed.
Andrew Long dominated both Triple M Challenge races, while Grant Williams in his distinctive ex-Jack Sears Jaguar won the guest Ecurie Classic Racing event despite losing places mid-race when he pitted a lap later than rivals under a safety car.