Things are hotting up on the track

The heat has been cranked up across the country this week – and things are hotting up on the race track as well for our sponsored competitors.

This weekend sees the much-anticipated start of the 2018 FUCHS LUBRICANTS RACRMC Historic Asphalt Rally Championship with the Rallye Salamandre in Belgium.

The championship is organised by the Roger Albert Clark Rally Motor Club and is a dedicated asphalt championship for all categories of historic stage rally cars.

Around 10 championship contenders will tackle this hugely popular event on closed public roads around the town of Beaumont in the south of Belgium.

In the typical style of Belgian rallies, the crews will complete each stage several times and two of the four stages feature a lapped format.

Meanwhile, Rochdale driver Steve Brown, backed by FUCHS, is competing on the Rallye Salamandre in the classic Mintex Mini. 

The car is eligible for both the two-wheel drive FIRC championship (which Steve and co-driver Paul Stringer won last year) and also the FUCHS LUBRICANTS RACRMC Historic Asphalt Rally Championship which the pair intend to enter for 2018.

The following weekend sees the crew competing on the first round of the HRCR Mini Cup series which will form a class on the Dixies Historic Rally held on the Epynt military ranges in the Brecon Beacons.

Last weekend, FUCHS supported Ian Joel and Graeme Wood were pleased with their third in class result on the Rallynuts Rally after seven classic forest stages in North Wales. 

The pair were lying second after lengthy stages in Crychan, Radnor, and Gwibedog, but fuel pressure problems on the last couple of stages saw them drop a place to the Subaru Impreza of Davies / Williams.

Elsewhere, the FUCHS supported rally team at CA1 Sport make the long journey from Cumbria to Essex this weekend in support of their drivers Tom Preston and Rhys Yates in their Skoda R5s. 

Team boss Martin Wilkinson said that he and his team were looking forward to taking part in the first closed-road rally to be held in England after the 2017 road-closure legislation came into force. 

Then on Monday the team will be fully occupied re-prepping Tom’s Skoda before it is shipped out for Tom to compete on Rally Barbados in June.

The Wrexham Glyndwr University students of Together, We Progress Racing have had to wait an extra month for the first 750 Motor Club CARTEK #ClubEnduro race after the cancellation of the Donington round – but they’re back in action.

Welcoming five new faces to the team this season, TWP were hopeful for a podium finish in the first round of the hotly contested championship.

It wasn’t to be, however. Car 72 managed 18th overall and sixth in Class, while Car 27 crossed the line 23rd overall, ninth in Class.

There were podium finishes for three FUCHS Silkolene-backed riders in the second round of the 2018 Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

Reigning champion Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne took his first win of the season in race one and Ducati team-mate Glenn Irwin finished second place in race two at Brands Hatch Indy.

Leon Haslam, meanwhile, of the FUCHS Silkolene-supported JG Speedfit Kawasaki team, claimed top spot in race two.

Shakey is now second in the standings behind Bradley Ray, while Haslam is in third and Irwin is fourth.

In other news, our top ambassador Paige Bellerby has been on the telly…again! She can been seen talking about Rallycross on That's North Yorkshire TV here: https://youtu.be/15LdJMPFKBc

And finally, Vitus Pro Cycling Team, who are new to the FUCHS Silkolene sponsorship programme, got their season of major events up and running in Chorley last weekend with the first round of the Spring Cup.

And it came with a podium for one of the young riders on the team, Harrison Jones.

With the team having an ethos in 2018 of giving young riders an opportunity to learn and show themselves at UCI Continental level, Harrison and others did exactly that in a race that was nothing short of brutal.

Image courtesy of Steve Morris.