The wide and sweeping spaces of Abingdon airfield were the setting for Round 3 of the BARC Connaught Speed Championship. Once again a strong turnout of twenty-seven Championship Competitors ran on a dull and sometimes cold, but crucially dry day. Last year had us sloshing around in a monsoon, so it was clear a lot of bogeys would be beaten today.
Using Sutton & Cheam Motor Club’s class structure, we will kick of with Class A1 where Gordon Peters in the Fiat 500 took third place on 116.27 seconds.
Moving on to Class A2, here six competitors battled it out. Rob Thomson in the Renault Clio 172 Cup took class honours on 106.34 seconds, with Mike Edwards in the British Mini taking a fine third place on 114.51 seconds.
We then move onto Class A5, where another BARC Contender took the class win – James Hunt in the BMW E30 winning on 101.68 seconds. Patrick Tucker in the mighty Chevrolet Camaro (all 7011cc’s of it!) took third on 104.37 seconds.
We then welcome the Lotus folks to my first report in Class A7. Tim Hardwicke took a fine win on 99.62 seconds in his Elise S1. Duncan Fraser took second place in the Lotus Elise on an excellent 99.97 seconds, with class stalwart Anthony Shearman in the Caterham 310R third on 101.06 seconds. Martin Roberts in the Elise S2 Sport was fifth on 101.82 seconds, along with Alan Day in the Elise S1 for sixth on a 102.13 seconds. Seventh was Glyn Davies on 103.28 seconds, eighth Claire Tooth on 103.51 seconds. Ninth place went to Jason Weatherall on 105.50 seconds, tenth to Graham Holdstock on 107.83 seconds, with Andy Pidgeon eleventh with 110.96 seconds. Phew, hope I got that right!