BOSTON AND ROCHE’S MEMORABLE VICTORY
Rob Boston made it three wins in a row at the Race of Remembrance and, this year, he had British GT championship racer Tom Roche sharing his Lotus Elise for the first time.
Roche had set the initial pace as the Caterhams of Williams Motorsport’s Calum Lockie, Rocket Racing’s Steve McCulley and Turn 7/RAF Motorsport’s Callum McDougall battled for second with Jason McInulty’s ES Motorsport Lotus Elise.
But the Boston car lost time when a wire came off the alternator and McInulty’s Elise was also in trouble as it put a rod through the engine block before part one of the race ended at 2200hrs. That meant, after seven hours had been completed, Harry Williams -sharing with Lockie - led from McCulley, with Boston/Roche down in sixth.
McCulley/Andrew Perry had lost time with an alternator problem too and arrived in the pitlane with no lights whatsoever.
The Boston-run Elise had an overnight engine change ahead of the short 90-minute part two, which took place before the pitlane Remembrance service.
Williams still led and soon handed back to Calum Lockie as part three got underway but the crew soon retired with an engine failure.
Michael and Bailey Edwards’ Elise was one of only two cars in the relay class, but they had the lead as McCulley/Perry and Boston/Roche closed in.
Boston picked up a 90-second stop-go penalty for an alleged yellow flag incident, which then left Roche hunting down McCulley in the final half hour.
There was a late safety car, and from the restart, the minutes were counting down. On aggregate Roche had the lead and finally took the spoils.
McCulley had been first to take the flag as he still led part three, but had to settle for second on aggregate with the Edwards two laps down in third.
The Turn 7/RAF Caterham of McDougall/Neil Huggins/Lloyd Huggins/Andrew Jebson had led for a quite a while during the evening but they came home fourth, as the UPC Caterham of Benja Hedley/ Andrew Perry/David Rooke and 360MRC’s Mini
Cooper with Duncan Rogers/ Martin Smith/William Smith completed the top six.
Matthew Bolton’s BMW M3 spent the early laps of the Clubsport Trophy in a duel with Mark Jones VW Golf, until Conor Modro’s Ginetta G40 caught them, split them and led from Peel on lap nine.
Bolton led after the pitstops but shared a brief exchange with Modro again before taking the spoils behind the safety car, with Rob Phillips’ Honda Civic taking third.