STOBART SPORT TAKES A NARROW FUN CUP VICTORY
The Stobart Sport team of Colin Kingsnorth and Jonathan Hoad took the Fun Cup Endurance spoils in a complicated finale after four hours of racing.
Defending champions and firstround winners UVio/Hofmann’s Lotus were out of the reckoning with a battery problem, which left PLR Racing’s Neil Plimmer, Stobart’s Hoad, Greenheath’s Gary Bate, Kaizen Motorsport’s Riley Phillips and GCI Racing’s Craig Butterworth in contention after a late safety car intervention.
But Plimmer and Riley both had to serve track-limit stop-go penalties with only 11 minutes on the clock, Bate had an off at Britten’s too, which left Hoad in front with Butterworth in pursuit.
Stobarts just held on with
0.695 seconds to spare from Butterworth, with GT Radial’s Ellis Hadley, Phillips, Agua Caliente’s Paul Turner and Plimmer completing the top six.
There was a double lights-toflag for John Murphy’s Van Diemen RF90 in the Northern and Super Classic FF1600 races. In race one, Andrew Schofield’s
Reynard FF89 managed to hold off Peter Daly’s RF88 as they both reined in Murphy’s lead. That allowed Alaric Gordon’s Swift SC97 to secure a close fourth too.
Murphy, Schofield and Daly held station from the opening lap of race two, while Nick Barnes’ Swift FB89 came out on top of a race-long duel for fourth with Gordon.
Chris Jones was another double winner in the ST-XR Challenge. But Chris Grimes ran him close for the whole of race one, while Michael Blackburn came out on top of another duel for third with Sam Beckett.
With Grimes left at the start of race two, Jones had Blackburn chasing him into Old Hall. They remained close throughout, but Jones retained control, while thirdplaced Beckett was almost caught by the recovering Grimes on the last lap.
After heading a five-car battle at the front of the restarted CityCar Cup race, Richard Bliss gradually eased himself clear of the scrap for second. Seb Melrose, Stuart Bliss and Elliot Lettis were all in contention, with numerous exchanges. But after taking the flag second, Melrose was given a jump-start penalty, leaving Stuart Bliss and Lettis to complete the podium.
Apart from the sprint to the first corner, the entire second race was run behind the safety car, after Lettis crashed out at Island.
An attempt to go green was then thwarted when Liam Browning went off at Old Hall and Stuart Bliss was declared the winner, from Melrose and Christopher Mackenzie.