MENZIES SETS OUT HIS STALL FOR TITLE
Wallace Menzies now sits two points behind joint championship leaders
Scott Moran and Alex Summers after a set of wins on Belfast’s road-closed course at the weekend.
Menzies, who took his second crown in 2021 when the Ulster event was the penultimate venue, was fastest on each section of the round-three run-offs. The Scot drifted his Gould out of Hadley for a sharp run and brushed the third part of the crossroad chicane to lead by 0.23 seconds before the fast Belmont Road section.
DJ Firestorm-mounted Summers would outdo Moran over the distance to finish second and fastest at the speed trap with the Indycar- engined car recording 117mph between the hedge-lined hill.
Rain continued into round four and Moran was fastest off the line in his Gould
GR59J, a very tight line on the third corner proved costly with Menzies faster by the next timing beam to go from winning in the morning by 0.60s to
0.76s – still marginal on the 1460-yard test. It is a confident booster now though for the Avon-tyred runner, following set-up struggles at the opening rounds. Moran improved to second to keep the championship position at the top just as it was leaving Prescott the weekend before.
David Uren, in a GR55Bspec Gould, slipped back from last year with fourth and fifth times, swapping places with Trevor Willis’s OMS 28, which proved faster off the line. Uren was quicker over the majority of the hill all for the last section of the final run.
Matthew Ryder continued to learn a Gould GR59J in his first season in the bigger cars with two sixth-place finishes, taking 0.69s off his previous time on the last run. Richard Spedding and David Warburton followed on both occasions with the latter sliding out of Hadley on the first occasion and brakes momentarily locking into the allimportant chicane.
Paul Hamies, Gould GR59, added two points to his total on the first of the run-offs and Lee Griffiths’ OMS 28 went better to score twice to add three points. Nicola Menzies’ visit scored her first point of the campaign.
Stourbridge’s Will Hall, in a new for 2022 car, could have been a contender only for an ECU warning forcing limp mode – he now sits as far back at 10th in the points tally with no scores at Craigantlet.
Also a round of the Northern Ireland series. County Antrim’s Tim Woodside in a Pilbeam MP82 was fastest ahead of Croft winner and GTR Turbo owner Graham Thompson. Robert Dwane, who represented Ireland at the FIA Hillclimb Masters, was down a spot from
2021 to third.
Results
Organiser: Ulster Automobile Club When: April 30 Where: Craigantlet
Starters: 86.
Round 3: 1 Wallace Menzies (Gould GR59M) 43.07s; 2 Alex Summers (DJ Firestorm) 43.63s; 3 Scott Moran (Gould GR59J) 43.98s; 4 David Uren (Gould GR55B) 44.93s; 5 Trevor Willis (OMS 28) 45.64s; 6 Matthew Ryder (Gould GR59J) 46.93s; 7 Richard Spedding (GWR Raptor 2) 47.35s; 8 David Warburton (Gould GR59) 47.74s; 9 Paul Hamies (Gould GR59) 48.01s; 10 Lee Griffiths (OMS 28) 48.80s.
Round 4: 1 Menzies 42.20s; 2 Moran 42.96s; 3 Summers 43.45s; 4 Willis 45.47s; 5 Uren 45.52s; 6 Ryder 46.24s; 7 Spedding 47.50s; 8 Warburton 48.16s; 9 Griffiths 48.36s; 10 Nicola Menzies 48.69s. Points (after 4/30 rounds): 1 Moran and Summers 36; 3 Menzies 34; 4 Willis 28; 5 Ryder 24; 6 Uren 23.