LEE AND HIZZY TAKE BRITCAR BRACE
Mark Lee and Owen Hizzey won both Britcar Trophy races at Donington Park as extreme heat caused issues for some cars.
Lee led the early stages of race one from pole ahead of SVG Motorsport team-mate Ian Astley, while a qualifying incident prevented Aldo Riti and Kevin Clarke from starting from the front row in their BMW.
After taking over from Astley at the mandatory pitstop, Neil Wallace found himself in front, but he was caught and passed by Lee into Redgate with less than 10 minutes remaining, while Sebastian Debois completed an all-Ginetta podium in third.
With his car repaired for race two, Clarke stormed from the back of the field to take the lead away from Lee on lap seven, but a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits demoted him back to second. The race was red-flagged and reduced to a 20-minute restarted contest when Steve O’Brien was caught out by the deployment of the safety car and had a huge crash in his Clio after piling into the back of another car. Riti took over from Clarke for the restart but, despite a late safety-car period creating a final-lap dash to the chequered flag, was unable to challenge Hizzey, as Astley came home third. Charlie Hand took the overall points lead with two podiums in the Clio class, but he lost the win in race one after passing Richard Ashmole under yellows at the final corner.
Steve McDermid took his ninth straight MGOC championship win in the opening race ahead of William Sharpe, who passed Jack Woodcock late on. But a driveshaft issue while leading race two ended McDermid’s unbeaten run, leaving Sharpe to fight Woodcock for victory. The pair clashed on the final lap at Macleans, with Sharpe initially triumphing before being demoted to second behind Woodcock for gaining an unfair advantage.
Adam Jones took a brace of victories in the Hyundai Coupe Cup by leading home Wayne Rockett and Luca Staccini in race one, before fending off Staccini in a shortened second contest. Despite being involved in a thrilling scrap with Staccini in the first encounter, Alistair Dendy was excluded for a yellow flag infringement along with Mark Ridout.
James Card moved to the top of the BMW standings with a pair of wins, while Kevin Denwood’s title hopes suffered a blow in a heavy crash at the Craner Curves on the final lap of race one.