Weekly Motorsport Round-Up #19

There were champagne celebrations for David Bogie and Kevin Rae after a fantastic lights-to-flag victory on Saturday’s Grampian rally.

In the Skoda Fabia R5, the pair held a six second advantage over Euan Thorburn and Paul Beaton after the first of half a dozen demanding granite-based forest stages to the south-west of Aberdeen.

Bogie and Rae, with service and support from the FUCHS-backed CA1 Sport, were put under pressure all day but kept their nerve to record the fastest times on all stages to finish 58 seconds ahead of Thorburn.

There was more success for red-hot Peter Hickman and the Gloucester-based Smiths Racing team at Saturday’s Ulster Grand Prix.

Fresh on the back of his maiden British Superbikes success, Hickman managed three wins, a second place and a fully deserved ‘Man of the Meeting’ trophy.

Hickman roared into the lead in the Superstock race, eventually takin the chequered flag by almost five seconds to open his account.

And win number two came in the opening Supersport race. This time, however, it was far closer, only getting the better of Bruce Anstey by 0.186s after a pass at Tournagrough with one lap remaining.

But Kiwi Anstey got his revenge in the feature Superbike race of the day over seven laps, just pipping Hickman to first place by 0.272s.

A good move at Wheelers in the second Supersport race made it three wins from four starts for Hickman, before a technical issue forced him out of the final Superbike race of the afternoon.

Nevertheless, his amazing performance had already won him the Man of the Meeting accolade.

“It’s been an awesome day and I’m obviously over the moon with a hat-trick of wins,” said 30-year-old Hickman.

Meanwhile, Ivan Lintin and the Dafabet Devitt Racing team also enjoyed a good weekend in Ulster, including yet another race win in the Supertwin class.

Victory came after an extremely hard fought tussle with Dan Cooper. There was never more than a second between the pair and, just as it looked like Lintin would have to settle for second, a superb drive around the final corner saw the Bardney rider edge out his fellow Kawasaki mounted rider by just 0.024s.

Lintin also picked up P13, P8, P12 and P9 finishes on a successful meeting.

“It’s been a fantastic meeting, the obvious highlight being the win in the Supertwins race,” said the FUCHS SILKOLENE-backed ace.

Hickman is back in action this weekend as the British Superbikes championship heads to Cadwell Park for round eight. He’ll be trying to cement his place in the top six as the Showdown looms.

Meanwhile, Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne will be looking to bounce back after a disappointing meeting at Thruxton last time out.

There was more disappointment for Adam Morgan and the Ciceley Motorsport team at the latest round of the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill.

Looking for points after three troubled meetings, Morgan got off to a flyer to secure an eighth place finish in race one.

Drama followed, though, as fluid was found to be leaking from Morgan’s power steering system, forcing him out of race two.

Morgan had to start race three from 26th on the grid on a track where overtaking is tough. The Lancashire man put in a stellar performance to bag 17th in the end, just missing out on a more championship points.

Morgan said: “We have shown again that we have the pace but we need some luck now, that’s all.”

Finally, our youngest sponsored racer, Freddie Housley, was in karting action again, this time at Rowrah in Cumbria.

The pocket rocket has had better days but battled hard to finish third overall.

In the BTRDA Rallycross Super Modified class sponsored by FUCHS LUBRICANTS, Allan Tapscott currently heads the points table with two rounds still to go, at Blyton Park on October 15 and November 5 at Croft Circuit.

Image courtesy of DavidBogieRallying Facebook Page