THE OULTON TRILOGY

Tomorrow the BRSCC North Western Centre concludes its trio of Oulton Park meetings within a five week period with the Caterham Motorsport Raceday. Three of Caterham’s senior championships line-up at Oulton in the shape of the Roadsports-A, Roadsports-B and Supersports, all backed by Avon Tyres.

James MacLachlan’s charge to the Supersport title now seems unstoppable and should be confirmed if results go his way tomorrow. However, the battle for second place is too hard to call. Nathan Lindop and PIM Racing’s Rob Smith, the only other winner this year, are level on points but failed to shine in the gloom of Brands Hatch.

Matters are all together tighter in the Roadsport-A Championship where a mixed set of Brands Hatch results for all the leading drivers means that the championship table order, currently headed by rainmeister Jamie Orton, is well and truly shuffled once the two dropped scores are taken into account. JJ O’Malley lays in fourth, but leads once his two DNF’s are no longer counted. Joining the grid tomorrow is world class road bike race Guy Martin, who will make his 4-wheel debut.

Once again, the Roadsport-B championship has become the most hotly contested in Caterham Motorsport. A five-way battle for the championship title sees Lee Wiggins with a slight advantage after a good showing at Brands. Jeremy Webb, Steve Day, Ben Whibley and Martin Addison who excelled at the Kent circuit, are the other drivers still in contention.

Oulton Park’s two ‘home’ championships will be in action tomorrow. The Northern Formula Ford 1600 Championship has double headers for both the Pre 90 and Post 89 categories. In the former John Farrell has a one point lead from Lee Hannam, but once the dropped scores are factored in it is the Cheshire airline pilot who has the advantage.

In the Post 89 class battle will re-commence between Aussie invader Jordan Skinner and Southport’s Stuart Gough, who has made big improvements in the performance of his Ray GRS07 over the last two meetings and is nibbling away at the Antipodeans’ lead.

The BRS Recovery Ford XR Challenge returns to Oulton for the second of several consecutive visits. Paul Bishop looks to have the XR2 honours in the bag. The main battle is now for second spot with protagonists Craig Readyhough and Michael Heath separated by just 3 points. In the XR3i class Anglesey’s John-Ifan Jones will be determined to fight off a strong challenge from Marcus Riley and Terry Kellaher.

As with the Caterhams & Formula Fords, the ‘dropped scores’ rule will also have a big part to play in the destination of the Alfashop Alfa Romeo title. Chris Healey’s GTV has the outright lead but the Cheam racer has already used up his two dropped scores so he has little margin for error if he is to keep his daughter Mel and Andy Inman at bay. Guesting in the championship tomorrow is Autosport journalist Ben Anderson who will be out in Graham Heels’ Class E 147.