Halstead’s spinning Sixties win
An eventful Swinging Sixties Group 2 contest opened the Bank Holiday programme at Oulton Park, with
Mark Halstead’s Ginetta G4 taking the honours despite a mid-race spin.
Halstead qualified sixth, dropping from provisional pole after pitting as others improved on a drying early morning track. But, after rapid early progress, Halstead cut inside leader Steve Hodges’s Lotus 7 at Old Hall on lap two.
Halstead built a five-second lead before his mistake at Lodge dropped him to third behind Hodges and Malcolm Johnson (Lotus Europa). Halstead was quickly back in front, but Hodges stayed with him until a 30s pitstop success penalty, as the Brands Hatch winner, dropped him from contention. Halstead’s slower stop put Johnson ahead once more, but he finally regained the lead under braking for Hislops before pulling clear.
The Group 1 race brought a maiden series win for Connor Kay in his MG Midget. A flying start catapulted Anglesey double winner Richard Perry (Austin-healey Sprite) into the lead between front-row men Sam Polley and Matthew Howell, who touched exiting Old Hall, putting Howell’s Mini out. Polley’s Mini Marcos slipped to eighth while Perry led from Kay and Ian Staines. After a safety-car period, Staines challenged Perry for the lead through Old Hall, but contact damaged Perry’s rightrear sufficiently to sideline him. Staines survived but was then jumped in the pits by Kay. The youngster romped to victory over the recovering Polley by nearly 30s, the length of Polley’s success penalty.
Modern Classics honours fell to Oliver Smith’s BMW M3 E36 Evo over Dave Griffin’s slightly less developed version. Griffin had jumped polesitter Smith at the start, with the Nissan Skyline GTR R32 of Mark Chilton slotting into second. But what looked set to be a three-way scrap for victory quickly evaporated when a puncture fired off Chilton just after he’d passed Griffin for the lead on the second lap. Smith’s pressure on Griffin got him back in front and, with ruthless precision in traffic, he stretched the advantage to more than 30s at the flag. An impressive third overall, Matthew Lewis claimed concurrent Future Classics honours in his Marcos Mantula.
Darren Fielding’s M3 won a New Millennium race heavily disrupted by stoppages. A startline shunt claimed