Late showdown in Fun Cup thriller
Jay Shepherd and Ed Worthington celebrated Fun Cup’s first visit to
Thruxton with a hard-fought victory, with less than a second in hand over Axiametrics’ Chris Dovell, Kristian Rose and Riley Phillips after four hours of racing.
It all came down to a 12-minute sprint after the final safety car intervention, as Phillips led from Uvio/hofmann’s Fabio Randaccio, before Shepherd split them.
With two laps to go, Shepherd’s Team 7 WASPP machine hit the front and, after taking the fastest lap of the race on the final tour, victory was secured, with Phillips a close second and Randaccio just holding off 2Rent Dominos’ Henry Dawes for third.
Although triple champion Steven Dailly was never headed in the first Compact
Cup bout, he had David May as a race-long shadow, split by only 0.352s at the flag. Ian Jones initially held third before falling back to sixth after a safety car interlude. As the duel for third came up Woodham Hill for the last time, Tom Griffiths darted past Mikey Doble to seal the final podium place.
Former British GT driver Jordan Stilp took his first BMW win in a shortened and wet race two, from Ben Huntley and Jones, as all three held station.
In the third race, Dailly and Griffiths got away from the rest as they had their own battle. Dailly started the last lap in front by inches but Griffiths came back again, to snatch the win with 0.125s to spare.
It was a four-car battle to the finish in the first Caterham 270R and Roadsport race as Andrew Murgatroyd, Harry Cook, Angelos Alvanos and Ben Lopez-appleton all had spells in front in the closing stages. Both Murgatroyd and Cook edged out Alvanos on the last lap, but Cook was declared the winner after Murgatroyd was given a driving standards penalty, dropping him to fifth.
After Alvanos had set the early pace in a wet second race, Lars Alexander Hoffmann built a lead that continued to grow until the final laps when Lopez-appleton closed.
John Byrne was victorious in both wet and dry as he took a double win in Caterham Seven UK and 310Rs. In race one, Henry Heaton consolidated second, as a terrific duel between Rob Watts and Jake Swanndixon for third went in Watts’ favour.
Byrne had to fight somewhat harder in the drier second race, when a duelling Heaton and Stephen Nuttall closed in. Nuttall led for a couple of laps, before they alternated until Byrne made it decisive.
Bruce Winfield kept his nose ahead of a three-car battle for second in the Civic Cup opener. Max Lewis was just ahead when it mattered in the runner-up fight as Alistair Camp was a close third.
Despite a partly reversed grid for the second race, Lewis and Winfield were still in the clear after three laps when the safety car came out. From the green flag, Winfield piled the pressure on Lewis for the final three laps but it remained unchanged, as Camp was again third.
Tom Cockerill won the Green Group Caterham Academy contest, with Deniz Erkan-bax a close second, while Simon Shaw just headed home Taylor O’flanagan in the White Group after Domenique Mannsperger spun at the chicane on the last lap challenging for the win.