DRAMA ALL THE WAY AT OULTON PARK


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Team Eco Racing celebrate their unlikely Fun Cup title win at Oulton. Photo: MH Pic


No less than four championship titles were decided when the BRSCC North Western Centre wrapped up their regular season at Oulton Park last Saturday.

The five-race schedule started with the CFT Services Ford XR Challenge, and a battle royal raged for the ten laps before Chris Jones, in his XR3i, took the race win with Craig Brookfield the first XR2 home.

The TVR title duel was between Hugh Marshall and Andy Race but Michael Saunders stole their thunder in the first tour, winning from Darren Smith and Nick Cresswell. Marshall and Race had to be satisfied with eighth and eleventh respectively. So all to play for going into the final round!

During the lunch-break there was a minutes silence held in honour of former BRSCC North Western Centre stalwart Alistair Garrett, who died suddenly on 29thSeptember, and Dick Fraser who was a member of BRSCC for many years.

The XRs got the proceedings back underway after the lunch-break and it was Steve Poole who got off to a flier from third on the grid to lead the race in his XR2. Craig Brookfield chased him hard but came up just four-hundredths of a second short as Poole took the chequered flag. However, it was Brookfield who was celebrating as the win was enough to secure him both the XR2 and overall XR title for 2012. John-Ifan Jones was first home amongst the XR3i drivers and that was enough to confirm the Welshman as the XR3i champion. Terry Kellagher also deserves a mention as the winner of the Veterans Cup. Many congratulations to all the XR competitors and thanks for giving us some great racing through 2012.

The second Dunlop TVR Challenge race saw Nick Cresswell fly off the grid like a scalded cat in his invitation class Caterham 7! He led into Old Hall but was reeled in by Michael Saunders who took his second win of the day. Unfortunately, a red flag with three minutes to go brought the race to a premature end and the result was declared, leaving Hugh Marshall, who finished eighth, as the 2012 Dunlop TVR champion! Many congratulations to Hugh.

The scene was now set for the Fun Cup finale, which was vigourously contested over four gruelling hours! Prior to the start, the Solution Racing managed 209 Team Eco Racing car had a remote mathematical chance of winning the championship. They needed to win the race and have defending champions Honeywell finish an unlikely third. In the end it all came down to a superb fifteen minute end of race sprint, that in itself had many twists and turns.


The Safety Car intervention that caused the last fifteen-minute dash for the cash, had added to the stress for the Solutions Racing supported car as at the time they had a marginal lead, and more importantly a twenty-six second advantage over their main rivals Honeywell. However, Honeywell eventually finished fifth and the 209 car of Team Eco Racing, ably driven by Paul Abraham, Charlie Burt, Jason Simon and Tom Mills, held on to take the win and so finally scaled the top step of the championship after a year- long battle.

Full results can be found at OULTON RESULTS

The BRSCC North Western Centre have one more meeting to organise this season, the Winter Raceday at Anglesey on Sunday 2ndDecember, details of which will be announced shortly.

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