WEEKLY MOTORSPORT ROUND-UP #24

Rob Smith and Alun Cook were the top scorers during rounds five and six of the FUCHS Lubricants R.A.C. Historic Asphalt Championship on Rally Isle of Man (September 14-16).

The latest rounds of the asphalt championship ran to a double-header format over the famous closed roads of the Isle of Man as the event delivered as big a challenge as it has for over half a century. Smith and Cook overcame a series of problems, including the loss of their spotlights after a trip through some posts on Friday evening, but ran at a typically strong pace to take two maximum scores.

However island experts Dessie Nutt/Geraldine McBride (Porsche 911) matched that performance by taking two maximum scores in Category 1 to achieve a perfect score for the season. Neat, tidy and quick throughout, they used good knowledge of the island to record a fine result. They could yet be matched at the top of the final standings by Roger Moran (BMW M3) if he can take a maximum on the Jersey Rally next month. Moran and Paul Morris took one maximum score on the Isle of Man but retired from part two with a broken diff carrier.

Second home among the FUCHS contenders was the Escort Mk2 of Barry Stevenson-Wheeler and John Pickavance who turned in a great performance on only their second visit to the island. Nutt and McBride were third while Lyndon Barton and Simon Hunter were next up after a good run in their Escort Mk2.

The challenging Manx lanes took a heavy toll of retirements and Simon and Alister Crook were eliminated when a kick back through the steering wheel left Simon unable to continue due to a hand injury. Meanwhile, torrential rain on stage two on Thursday afternoon put expected leading contender Neil Williams and Ashley Trimble out when their Escort Mk2 clouted a bank.

Other non-finishers included Paul Smith and Tudor Jenkins, who posted a late retirement with a damaged wheel on their BMW M3, while Nick Pinkett and Hugh Myers retired the Saab 96 after dramas that included losing the electrics in the dark of Thursday evening. Ian Robertson and Andrew Scott (Avenger Tiger) also went out on Friday evening but the new pairing of Bob Seager and Jamie Sparks battled on valiantly to bring their MG Midget to a well deserved finish on their first time on the Isle of Man.

Jason Pritchard and Phil Clarke were the stars of the historic section of rounds 7 and 8 of the 2017 Mintex MSA British Historic Rally Championship.

Pritchard and Clarke were faultless as they dominated the historics and took a maximum score to set up a winner-takes-all final on the Trackrod Rally at the end of September.

In the Mintex MSA British Historic Rally Championship, the ‘Spirit of the Rally’ product award from FUCHS Lubricants went to Andrew Stokes and Adrian McNally. They were innocent parties in a head-on collision involving Belgian driver Peter Tsjoen during the pre-event recce and were left bruised and battered in the accident that wrote off their recce car.

However, they were determined to start and battled on to achieve Andrew’s ambition of finishing the rally in the Ford Escort Mk1 that his late brother David took to many successes on the island. Despite losing four minutes to a fuel pump problem, they finished 16th in the historic field and missed Category 2 victory by 16s.

In other news, David Bogie debuted his newly-rebuilt Ford Escort Mk 2 on the recent Galloway Hills rally, and was delighted with his sixth overall, first in class performance.

Bogie’s next planned outing will be in the Skoda Fabia R5 on the McRae Gravel Challenge in two weeks, as part of the CA1 Sport test programme for Rally GB.

A trio of FUCHS-supported rally drivers are getting ready for the Trackrod rally which starts and finishes in Filey next weekend, with 45 miles of classic Yorkshire forests to look forward to in between.

Ian Joel and Graeme Wood will be out in the beautiful Ford Escort Cosworth, wihch is currently undergoing a suspension rebuild.

"Those forests are so fast you have to make sure you have confidence in the car's suspension - otherwise one dodgy bump, and you're in the trees" said Ian.

Also busy with a rebuild - the engine this time - is Kim Gray, fettling her 1.6 litre Kent engined Ford Escort Mk 2. The trio is completed by North Yorkshire garage owner Steve Magson, who will be using his unique gravel-spec Mercedes 190.

British Rally Championship contenders Fredrik Ahlin and Torstein Erikson in the Skoda Fabia R5 suffered the cruellest of cruel blows when, after three non-stop days of rallying on the tight, narrow and bumpy roads of the Isle of Man they were left just a single point behind season-long rivals Keith Cronin and Mike Galvin in the Ford Fiesta R5, as Cronin/Galvin took top podium spot on both legs of the double-header 138.com Rally Isle of Man. This meant that Ahlin/ Torstein had to finish at least second on at least one of the two legs.

Ahlin/Torstein had a relatively cautious start to the event on Thursday evening, with third place on the opening two stages, whilst a small spin on the third stage saw them drop five seconds to the M Sport Ford Fiesta R5 crews of Cronin/Galvie and Edwards/Garrod.

In the FUCHS-backed CA1 Sport team, Ahlin was backed up in the team competition by the pairing of Rhys Yates / Andrew Roughead, because usual team mate David Bogie had decided to sit out the remainder of the 2017 season following his accident in Ypres.

But normal service for Ahlin was resumed on the rest of the day’s stages heading into the dark of the Thursday night with placings of second and third on the remaining two night stages.

Ahlin / Erikson started Friday as they had left Thursday, with a third and second fastest times on the opening two stages of the day, before setting equal fastest time on the Tholt y Will stage. After a regroup of thirty minutes (necessitated by the road-closure scheme in operation on the island to run the closed road stages), there then followed a delay of an hour, as the MSA Safety Delegate required a major change to stage nine by the removal of the on-stage split and merge of the lapped layout.

This meant the crew were embarking on a seven mile stage with the car completely cold – tyres and transmission being particularly important, and resulting in Ahlin’s first spin of the event and dropping a crucial nine seconds to Cronin.

Stage 10 was not a good stage, as Ahlin reported that the diff was beginning to play up. He nursed the car through stage 11, but dropped a lot of time to both Cronin and Edwards. However he held on to his third place overall, as going into the stage he had a healthy lead over Yates/Roughead in fourth place.

This was crucial to his championship hopes, as that stage was the last stage of the first of the two legs, and full championship points were awarded for that leg. At that point he was still ahead in the championship, but needed to finish no lower than second on the final leg if Cronin was still leading.

At the midpoint service, CA1 Sport team boss Martin Wilkinson said: “We’ve changed the gearbox and diff here, and we softened the front springs at first service to give Fredrik a better feel under braking on the bumpy roads. But it’s a real hard battle at the front between the three of them.”

The whole gearbox and diff assembly was changed at the intermediate service by the CA1 crew before the start of the final leg. Despite clipping a kerb on the spectator stage in Castletown, it did little damage and the crew were able to continue.

But, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t catch the two crews ahead. Cronin had taken all sorts of risks throughout the three days, but turned out to be a ‘lucky’ driver as he did no major damage, although his Fiesta looked more than a little second hand on some occasions when he brought it back in to service for the M Sport crew to fettle.

Edwards meanwhile, had had the kind of event that rally drivers dream of – a reliable works-spec car which he was able to drive at top speed, but in a controlled manner. On the second leg, he was a mere 0.1 of a second behind his team leader, probably the smallest losing margin ever in BRC history - he deserved his second place. This meant that Ahlin was unable to gain the single place he needed to secure the championship, even though he had several fastest times during the event.

So at the end of probably the most closely contested British Rally Championship in recent memory, Ahlin and Erikson finished a single point adrift, scoring 128 points to Cronin’s 129.

Yates/Roughead brought their car home in fourth place meaning that the FUCHS backed CA1 Sport team finished second in the Team Championship to the Ford works team M-Sport.

Elsewhere, Silkolene-backed karter Freddie Housley headed to Larkhall in Scotland for round six of the British Championships.

Freddie was wary that his competitors had raced on the track much more frequently than him, but he set the second fastest time in qualifying before finishing third and second in the heats.

Starting from second on the grid in the final, Freddie was in the lead by lap three and held on to clinch the overall win for the weekend.

It was an excellent weekend for our BTCC racer Adam Morgan at Silverstone.

Adam qualified in P3 and managed to hold onto that position in race one, taking a well-deserved podium.

There were more championship points to follow in races two and three as the Lancashire ace twice came home in sixth.

Those results mean Adam is now ninth overall in the championship, and fourth in the Independent standings.

Meanwhile, Ciceley Motorsport were also in action in the Renault UK Clio Cup, which ran alongside the BTCC at Silvertstone. Max Coates kept up his charge for a top three finish with a P9 and P4.

There wasn’t such good news for Shane 'Shakey' Byrne in the first round of the British Superbikes Showdown. A blurred visor hampered Shakey’s progress in race one, restricting the five-times champion to a ninth place finish at Oulton Park.

Shakey fought hard in race two but tyre wear problems saw him finish seventh.

Shakey is now third in the championship with it all to play for going into the final five races of the season.

FUCHS-backed Rochdale rally driver Steve Brown will mark his return to active competition with a new car for the forthcoming Heroes Rally at Weeton Army Barracks where he will pilot a Mitsubishi Evo IX on the event (24th September).

After a turbulent year behind the wheel of a Honda Civic which forced him to abandon plans to contest the remaining rounds of the Flanders International Rally Challenge, Brown will make his comeback to the sport at the end of the month and will drive a four wheel drive machine for the first time in anger.

Elsewhere, Ashleigh Morris headed to Knockhill for rounds 13 and 14 of The Scottish BMW Championship and qualified in P13 in the wet.

After an eventful race of safety cars and overtaking, P13 is where Ashleigh finished race one.

Ashleigh was the victim of some reckless driving by Jake Hutchison in race two, who went off-track to attempt a pass, sending him into the right rear quarter of Asheligh’s #77 and causing extensive damage.

Ashleigh managed to regain control but not before Stevie King has gone by.

“After calming down and studying the footage, we were preparing to inform the race stewards but we had let the 30-minute time limit elapse and therefore had to leave without speaking to them,” said Ashleigh.

“Good, clean, hard racing is what we all want – desperate driving is not something we want to see. Perhaps we’ll look into a difference racing route next year but I wouldn’t make any decisions without seeing how the final weekend pans out.”

Shaun Tarlton has been named the Mini 7 Racing Club S Class Championship champion!

After 12 rounds, the team has eight wins, nine poles, seven fastest laps and three lap records.

An incredible achievement – well done from all at FUCHS.

Last but certainly not least, a team of FUCHS Silkolene representatives will be heading up to Oliver’s Mount this weekend for the Steve Henshaw International Gold Cup.

Thousands of fans are expected to flock to the Scarborough circuit, which is proudly sponsored by FUCHS Silkolene.

Visit the Silkolene stand on the day and enter our great competition to win a posted signed by Shakey, Peter Hickman, Ivan Lintin or Beaumont!

Read the full preview here: http://www.silkolene.com/news/#!gold-cup-preview-17

There’s a big weekend ahead for the Bellerby sisters – Paige and Drew – who both defend their class leads in the latest round of the British Rallycross Championship at Pembrey.