Fun Cup battles go down to the wire at Oulton Park
OULTON PARK BRSCC 9 APRIL
Four hours of Fun Cup racing at Oulton Park came down to an 11-minute sprint to the flag following the final safety car intervention.
At the green, Neil Plimmer led for PLR Racing, from Stobart Sports’ Jonathan Hoad, Greenheath’s Gary Bate and Kaizen Motorsport’s Riley Phillips. Both Plimmer and Phillips had to serve stop-go penalties and Bate had an off at Brittens, which left Hoad out in front, pursued by Craig Butterworth (GCI Racing) and Ellis Hadley (GT Radial).
The Stobart pair of Hoad and
Colin Kingsnorth just held on by 0.529 seconds over Butterworth/
Ian Wood, with Hadley/jimmy Broadbent/steve Brown third.
John Murphy won both Northern & Super Classic Formula Ford races in his Van Diemen RF90. Andrew Schofield (Reynard 89FF) stayed close in the first race as Peter Daly’s Van Diemen RF88 ran with them. As the lead battle intensified, Alaric Gordon joined the trio with his
Swift SC97 and there was less than a second between all four at the flag.
Murphy was more dominant in race two, with Schofield and Daly holding station. But the duel for fourth went down to the wire, before Nick Barnes’s Swift FB89 finally saw off Gordon.
Toyota Aygo pilot Richard Bliss won the restarted Citycar Cup opener, with Seb Melrose’s Citroen C1 heading home Stuart Bliss (Aygo) and Elliot Lettis (Peugeot 107) before a penalty for Melrose for a jumped start dropped him to sixth.
The second race was placed under caution after Charles Mackenzie went off at Island Bend on the opening lap, only for the safety car to be called out again when Liam Browning crashed at Old Hall on the restart. Stuart Bliss headed home brother Richard and Melrose, with the race completed under caution.
There was little between Chris Jones and Chris Grimes in the first ST-XR Challenge race, as they left Michael Blackburn and Sam Beckett to duel for third. Despite a tracklimits penalty, Grimes was still a safe second, while Blackburn managed to retain the final podium spot.
With Grimes left at the start, Jones led the field away again in race two, but had Blackburn shadowing him. It was a second win for Jones, though, with Blackburn just 0.351s behind. Beckett just managed to retain third as the recovering Grimes closed in.