Short and Epps put on opening round thriller
DONINGTON PARK 750MC 5 APRIL
Perennial Mazda MX-5 Cup pacesetter Ben Short was given a thorough workout by series debutant Mike Epps as the 750 Motor Club season kicked off where it concluded last December.
The pair dominated the first encounter. They exchanged the lead – and some paint – on a couple of occasions, before Short eventually eased to a one-second win after former British Touring Car racer Epps missed a gear on the final lap.
Epps thought he’d turned the tables in race two only to be excluded post-race for having an underweight car. From eighth on the partially reversed grid, he had made the best of the first-lap skirmishes to run second, then quickly chased down leader Mike Comber, who had recovered to sixth in race one following a first-corner incident.
Boxed in as the pack negotiated the Craner Curves on lap one, Short had to settle for third on the road behind Comber, while Ben Hancy was promoted to his second podium of the day.
Drive of the day was arguably from Steve Foden. Narrowly defeated by Hancy in last year’s championship, Foden climbed from row 19 of the grid to fifth on the road in race two, after retiring from the opening race with a recurrence of an intermittent misfire.
Stopping during a safety-car period at the start of the pit window enabled Carl Swift and Rob Baker to open their Club Enduro title defence in ideal fashion. Swift admitted to having to drive defensively in the early stages to keep Joe Lock’s BMW E46 M3 GTR at bay after passing the polesitter on the outside line.
Hampered by a smaller fuel tank, the BMW was approaching a minute in arrears of Baker’s SEAT Leon Eurocup after Lock eventually relayed to Ash Hicklin under green-flag conditions. Hicklin demonstrated what might have been by reducing the gap to 3.8s at the flag, as Baker was hampered by tracking knocked askew by contact, while third-placed Chris Boardman also starred during his stint in the E36 M3 he shared with Adam Howarth.
Simon Walker-hansell was denied Locost race one victory when he was penalised for not rejoining the track safely following a first-lap error at the Melbourne Hairpin. As a result, the polesitter’s impressive recovery
drive was rewarded only with sixth. Andrew Tait inherited the win in a typically frenetic race, benefiting from the chaos caused by Geoff Peek’s last-lap spin across the track after dropping a wheel wide at Mcleans. Walker-hansell hit back with a win in race two, enjoying his tussle with Tait for the win after leader Martin West’s mid-race mistake.
Driving the Radical PR6 that took his father to a pair of titles a decade ago, Joe Stables held off Scott Mittell’s new machine to take a Bike sports double. Stables dived inside Mittell at Goddard’s early on in race one, taking advantage of the pole winner’s struggles under braking in his eponymous MC-41RR, now fitted with a Suzuki Hayabusa engine. Losing his diffuser mid-race failed to hamper Stables in the safety car-shortened race two.
The combined CALM All Porsche Trophy and Bernie’s V8 race was won by the TVR Tuscan of Matt Holben. After making a fast start from row three of the grid, Holben took advantage of the longer mandatory pitstop for leading Porsche runner Jonathan Evans (Cayman S) – owing to his pacesetting qualifying time – to move ahead in the pitstop sequence.