Former champion Will Gollop won the opening round of the MSA British Rallycross Championship at Kirkistown in Northern Ireland on Saturday.
Producing a perfect performance to start his championship campaign, Gollop (Canterbury) set fastest times in each of the first two qualifying heats to secure pole position for the Supercar A Final without the need to drive in the third heat.
Running ahead of John McCluskey (Dublin) and Lawrence Gibson (Banbridge), Gollop took the A Final win before moving on to repeat the feat in the Superfinal where Gibson was his closest challenger.
For the second time in the day McCluskey's Peugeot 306 was afflicted by a turbocharger problem and this soon allowed the ailing car to be overtaken by the leading SuperModified cars.
Swedish racer Urban Bergstrom won the SuperModified A Final but retired his Volvo S40 from the Superfinal after one lap. This left the way clear for the British racers to move forward and it was Dave Bellerby (Northallerton) who climbed up to take third place overall ahead of Mike Dresser (Brampton) and Mike Howlin (Haverfordwest) while McCluskey limped home in sixth place.
The day ended with a bang for Des Wheatley (Hartlepool) who had been the only driver to beat Bergstrom in the qualifying heats. Second in the A Final, Wheatley was running fourth in the Superfinal when he rolled his Rover Metro.
Superfinal (5 laps)1 Will Gollop (Ford Focus) 3m44.050s; 2 Lawrence Gibson (MG Metro 6R4) 3m47.634s; 3 Dave Bellerby (Vauxhall Nova) 4m01.523s; 4 Mike Dresser (Lotus Elise) 4m09.702s; 5 Mike Howlin (Ford Fiesta) 4m15.371s; 6 John McCluskey (Peugeot 306) 4m16.129s; 7 Des Wheatley (Rover Metro) 4 laps; 8 Urban Bergstrom (Volvo S40) 1 lap.
BRDA Rallycross Championship Run concurrently with the British Championship, the BRDA championship allows drivers from any category a chance to win the overall title with points awarded from the class A Finals.
Joining Will Gollop and Urban Bergstrom as winners, and joint championship leaders after one round, were Stock Hatch A Final winner Adrian Horsley (Redcar) who held off the challenge of Julian Godfrey (Heathfield) and Alan Thorndyke (Stanford-le-Hope) and Minicross victor John Binks. For Binks (Gosforth) it was a perfect day as he won all three qualifying heats before outpacing Matt Roach (Thundersley) in the A Final. John Thacker (Tanworth-in-Arden) scored a personal best third place finish.
A Final results, all four lapsSupercar 1 Gollop 3m02.333s; 2 McCluskey 3m04.121s; 3 Gibson 3m04.955s. no other starters.SuperModified in association with K&N Performance Filters1 Bergstrom 3m13.287s; 2 Wheatley 3m14.950s; 3 Bellerby 3m15.863s; 4 Dresser 3m23.062s; 5 Howlin 3m28.787s; 6 Phil Collard (Ford Sport Ka) 3m50.359s; 7 Mike Turpin (Vauxhall Nova) DNS; 8 John Collins (Vauxhall Tigra) DNS.Stock Hatch in association Yokohama1 Adrian Horsley (Citroen Saxo VTR) 3m34.122s; 2 Julian Godfrey (Peugeot 205 GTi) 3m35.466s; 3 Alan Thorndyke (Peugeot 205 GTi) 3m38.220s; 4 Grant Rees (Suzuki Swift GTi) 3m40.279s; 5 Kirk Twyman (Peugeot 205 GTi) 3m42.549s; 6 Dave Baines (Peugeot 205 GTi) 3m48.080s; 7 Sean Smith (Peugeot 205 GTi) 3m48.707s; 8 Derek Tohill (Citroen Saxo VTR) 3m49.997s.Minicross in association Yokohama1 John Binks 3m40.971s; 2 Matt Roach 3m42.880s; 3 John Thacker 3m46.054s; 4 Martin Yates 3m48.136s; 5 Nigel Blanks 3m49.633s; 6 Andrew Smith 3m52.332s; 7 Shelley Wakeling 3m56.496s. no other starters.
Junior Rallycross Championship in association YokohamaThe Junior championship shares the same calendar as the British Championship and looks like being very closely fought in its second year.
Joe Powis (Hereford) claimed pole position after setting fastest time in two of the three qualifying heats and then race away to score a clear victory (his first in the category) and start his championship assault in perfect style.Ash Davies (Cwmbran) was the only driver to get ahead of Powis in the heats but lost out at the start of the A Final and slipped back to fourth place. Making up two place in a good drive, Davies passed Jason Pritchard (Builth Wells) and Jonny Greer (Belfast) to finish second.
Driving a new and untested car, local driver Greer had a good run to third place.
A Final (4 laps)1 Joe Powis 3m49.989s; 2 Ash Davies 3m51.026s; 3 Jonny Greer 3m54.670s; 4 Andrew Jordan 3m57.455s; 5 Ashley Simpson 4m00.566s; 6 Jonny Block 4m00.886s; 7 Tommi Walmsley 4m01.553s; Excluded Jason Pritchard.
Next round: Lydden April 12
