Champions celebrated at awards evenings across the weekend
The award winners for the 2017 MSA British Historic Rally Championship and the FUCHS LUBRICANTS RACRMC Historic Asphalt Rally Championship were celebrated at the Casa Hotel in Chesterfield on Saturday (3 February).
Around 130 competitors and their guests were on hand to cheer the major winners. In addition, Marty McCormack and Barney Mitchell collected the major award from the 2017 Roger Albert Clark Rally.
The overall champions for the BHRC, completing a record-breaking hat-trick of titles, were Jason Pritchard and Phil Clarke and they received their awards from Simon Blunt, General Secretary of the MSA. Meanwhile, Dessie Nutt and Geraldine McBride picked up the major FUCHS LUBRICANTS Asphalt Championship award. Other category winners in the Asphalt championship who collected awards included Bob Seager, Ian Robertson/Andrew Scott and Lyndon Barton/Simon Hunter.
Clarke also collected the BHRC ‘over 55 co-driver’ award, while Phil Jobson took the ‘over 55 driver’ award. For the second year running, Ben Friend won the ‘under 25 driver award’ and Siobhan Pugh won the ‘under 25 co-driver’ award.
The award for the most entertaining driver went to Friend who, along with co-driver Cliffy Simmons, shared the RSR Historic Engineering Category 3 title with Tim Freeman and Paul Williams. Phil Jobson and Arwel Jenkins won the Capital Construction Category 2 and Phil Harris/Richard Suter won the Vintage Car Radiator Company Category 1 title.
Russell Kenyon, Head of the FUCHS UK Automotive Division was in attendance at the celebrations ahead of FUCHS LUBRICANTS confirmed new sponsorship deal for both the 2018 RACRMC Historic Asphalt Championship and the 2018 MSA British Historic Championship.
The Hilton Hotel in Coventry played host on to the British Rallycross Championship when over 300 guests celebrated the awards won in the 2017 season.
FUCHS-backed drivers Paige and Drew Bellerby were well featured during the evening, with Paige finishing 2nd in the hotly-contested Super National class in her Lotus Exige, and sister Drew also taking 2nd in the increasingly competitive BMW Mini class.
In addition to their drivers’ awards, the Team Bellerby sisters also collected the inaugural Best Promoted team award for their extensive activities on social media, with the girls posting regularly on both Twitter and Facebook throughout the year. Especially on-event, relaying the latest competition news and gossip, live and in real-time, to their many followers.
The 2018 rallycross season opens at a brand new Rallycross course opening at Silverstone race circuit. Paddy Hopkirk (guest of honour at the awards dinner) said he had already driven the course, and he found it impressive and was looking forward to competition commencing in earnest on March 17th.
Pictured (Left to right): Paige Bellerby, Drew Bellerby, Dessie Nutt, Simon Blunt (MSA General Secretary) and Geraldine McBride.
