Tour of Hamsterley

Our first trip to Hamsterley and apart from being liberally sprayed by showers throughout the day, the Tour of Hamsterley provided a full days motorsport action. The overall winner came from the modern field but as this was round 2 of the West Wales RAC Championship our initial focus will be there. Martin McCormack & Phil Clarke (Escort MkII) stamped their authority on the event from stage 1, setting fastest stage times on 5 of the 7 stages. Ultimately they won by 45 seconds from Steve Bannister & Louise Sutherland (Escort MkII). What perhaps was the larger shock was that Bannister only clinched 2nd place on the final stage when a puncture for Ryan Barrett & Barry Ferris (Escort MkII) saw them slip down to 5th Historic crew.

Somerset Stages Rally

The first really warm weekend of Spring saw a welcome return to the Somerset Stages. The top two dominated the event and in the end Connor McCloskey & Francis Regan took their Impreza WRC to victory over the Focus WRC of Charlie Payne & Paul Spooner by just 13 seconds. Despite their lack of experience on this rally they were best of 2 minutes ahead of the final podium place as Kevin Rowledge & Andrew Bargery (Impreza WRC) took a fine 3rd overall, their first together in the BTRDA. They just edged out top group N finishers Patrick Naylor & Ian Lawrence (Evo IX) on the final stage of the event.

World Endurance Championship – Silverstone 6hrs

In the end it all came down to the last half an hour as Allan McNish (Audi R18 e-tron) was set a mission, to catch his team mate to win his first Tourist Trophy after many years trying. Happily in these times of team orders Audi let their crews compete and with a few laps to go McNish took 1st place and victory alongside Tom Kristensen & Loïc Duval. Behind were André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer & Marcel Fässler in the sister Audi R18 e-tron. After out qualifying the Audis, Toyota could only manage 3rd place with Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Bueni & Stéphane Sarrazin.

European Le Mans Series – Silverstone 3hrs

A packed weekend down at Silverstone and this is installment one from the Saturday. We got two European Formula 3 races, qualifying for the World Endurance Championship but the main feature was European Le Mans Series qualifying, followed by the 3 hour race. With the rain clouds setting in towards the end of the first hour the race became a battle of who could keep it on the track. A safety car followed at about 1hr 40mins in and the race was neutralised until the 75% race distance point had been reached and the red flag could be dropped, with full points awarded.

Alan Healy Memorial Stages

Another superb day in Lincolnshire once again as we took in the Alan Healy Memorial Stages, at the majestic Cadwell Park. The 2012 winners Roger Duckworth & Mark Broomfield (Impreza WRC) looked to be favourites with the only serious challenge coming from the late entry of Dave Turnbull & Matthew Whattam (Impreza WRC). It looked to be going the way of the 2 way battle until Duckworth retired on stage 3 leaving Turnbull clear to take an easy victory. In fairness to Duckworth once the car was fixed he continued with the rally which many other drivers would not have done.