Holywell’s Tim Dilworth kicked off his Britpart MSA British Cross Country Championship campaign with a win on the opening round which was held in Rough Park near Ashby de la Zouch. Reigning champion Richard Kershaw was second with Stephen Hiatt third in his Warrior Indy.
Dilworth got off to a flying start in his Subaru-engined Peugeot 206, stopping the clocks 20 seconds ahead of Kershaw and Hiatt on the opening run.
Run one saw several crews have incidents, Alan Wilkinson rearranging the front of his Milner in some trees, Ivan Dudley lucky to emerge unscathed from a ditch and three crews off in another ditch.
Dilworth continued his good times for the rest of day one, pulling out a lead of 45 seconds over Huddersfield’s Kershaw with Stephen Hiatt a further 25 seconds back in third ahead of Gordon Monaghan in fourth and Martin Gould, who suffered a puncture on the final run of the day, in fifth.
Day two saw the leading pair continue to set the pace, with the exception of one run their times were within two seconds of each other. At the end of the 11 runs Dilworth held a lead of 31 seconds over the GSR 206 Evo 9 of Kershaw.
“It’s been a perfect event, the car was a dream,” said Dilworth.
“We’ve got an improved gearbox this year and we did a lot of work on the car over the winter to try and gain a bit of speed and improve reliability, it’s all come together today.”
“We got a big lead after the first two runs and from there we tried to maintain the gap to Richard”
“The course was really good, some very quick parts and a few tighter bits in the trees. I was pleased with the track conditions, the course didn’t deteriorate much over the two days. The sunny weather was great too!”
Stephen Hiatt remained in third position in his Warrior Indy and Martin Gould took fourth after trackrod end problems robbed Gordon Monaghan of a good result in his RS200 replica. Ian Rochelle rounded off the top five in his Millington Mattserati.
Further down the leaderboard Bob Seaman took 12th place overall and first in class on the debut of his Milner R5. During the course of the event Bob developed a new “Scandinavian wobble” technique for getting the car round the corners which proved to be effective. The new car was described as “like a rocketship”.
Bumpy Mike Moran completed his first event in his new AT4x4 Indy Challenger and he was heading for a top 15 result until a maximum on run 8 when the car went off the road.
Steve Smith debuted his BMW M3-powered JRG Indy III and he took the Focus-shelled car to 20th place.
In the Trophy class Adam Evans took victory in his Milner R4 while Lee Clinton claimed the Clubman class win.
The event also saw Chris Ratter out in a Freelander, the car being tested prior to the start of the Freelander Challenge on round 2 of the BCCC.
“We’ve had a great time and good fun. The course was excellent and we had no problems getting around it in our car which is pretty much standard,” said Ratter.
“I was pleased to set some times which were quicker than a lot of the purpose-built cars.”
After a successful round one the championship moves to Wales for round two which will take place near Aberystwyth on May 15/16.
Results
1. Tim Dilworth Peugeot 206 STi 54:00
2. Richard Kershaw GSR 206 Evo 9 54:31
3. Stephen Hiatt Warrior Indy 55:22
4. Martin Gould Mattserati 57:04
5. Ian Rochelle Millington Mattserati 58:10
6. Justin Birchall Peugeot M206 Evo 58:21
7. Dan Lofthouse Lofthouse Proto LD4 58:28
8. Karl Gudgeon GSR Evo X 59:06
9. Ryan Cooke Land Rover Special 1:00:20
10. Ian Roberts Rakeway Ridgeback 1:00:34
Trophy Winner: Adam Evans Milner R4
Clubman Winner: Lee Clinton Bowler Wildcat
