The Drayton Manor Park MG Metro Cup

Mallory Park 27th August 2006

After a dry qualifying session for the metros rain threatened for the race but thankfully held off to give an excellent penultimate round of the Mg metro cup at Mallory Park.

The MG Metro Cup welcomed ex British Touring car driver and current Seat cupra driver Carl Breeze for a guest drive in Stu Carters Gti.

Qualifying produced no major problems for the 19 metros apart from Barry lake who suffered a blown top water hose, but good old bazza still made it too the grid for the race !

John Flanigan qualified first, then Simon white followed closely by Paul Luti.

In class B Rob Campbell qualified ahead of Paul Ashton and Iain Patterson

Class A saw Terry Bracey-Wright ahead of Paul Rigg

 

The metros lined up on the grid and waited patiently for the flag to be waved, and they were off. One huge gaggle of metros raced down to gerrards corner and everyone held their breath till they came out the other side!

After the first lap things sorted themselves out and the different battles started to rage through the field. As they came round it was evident that this was going to be a cracking race, Simon White, Jon Flanigan and Paul Luti were all covered by the width of a fag paper with David Javes, Carl Breeze and Ewart Kitson chasing soon after.

Class B was headed by Rob Campbell with Paul Ashton a couple of places behind.

Unfortunately Barry Lake only lasted a lap before his engine threw up its oil contents into his engine bay.

 

The first 6/7 laps were headed by Simon white who was doing his hardest to hold the two chasing turbo’s off.

Ewart Kitson was chasing and now catching the lead group after a slow start but after seven laps rear exhaust problems forced him to retire early and left David Javes and Carl Breeze with the battle for fourth.

Rob Campbell opened up a comfortable lead in class B as Paul Ashton seemed to be loosing places and time over the laps.

A huge battle between Richard Garrard and Tony Howe raged from about this time right to the end of the race and was a great spectacle to watch these two noses to tail.

Simon white couldn’t hold onto the lead any longer as he found his brakes couldn’t quite do enough to stop him as well as he wanted into the hairpin and so Paul Luti and Jon Flanigan battled it out for first, but resulted in Paul winning comfortably in the end. With Simon Finishing 3rd.

Campbell won class B in a lonely race, Paul Ashton dropped out 1 lap from the end with a miss which eventually cut out on him found out later to be a ignition wire worn through by the fan.

Tony Howe held off the Challenge from Garrard, and Terry Bracey-Wright taking class A.

Dave Heasman suffered clutch problems from early in the race which lead to his disappointing race time.

 

Results by Class

   Class D

     1. Carl breeze (5th overall)

   Class C

  • Paul Luti ( 1st overall)
  • Jon Flanigan ( 2nd overall)
  • Simon White ( 3rd overall)


    Class B

     1.Rob Campbell (6th overall)

     2.Iain Patterson (11th overall)

     3.Eric Evans (13th overall)

   Class A

  • Terry Bracey-Wright ( 14th overall)
  • Paul Rigg (16th overall)

     

Full Result                                          

  • Paul Luti
  • Jon Flanigan
  • Simon White
  • David Javes
  • Carl Breeze
  • Rob Campbell
  • Tony Howe
  • Richard Garrard
  • Tony Dowler
  • Brian Owen
  • Iain Patterson
  • Chris Harris
  • Eric Evans
  • T. Bracey-Wright
  • David Heasman
  • Paul Rigg
  • Fastest Laps

    Class D- Ewart Kitson 56.944

    Class C- Paul Luti 56.385

    Class B- Rob Campbell 58.762

    Class A- T. Bracey-Wright 1:02.536

     

    It Was a great days racing at Mallory hopefully Castle Combe can provide the same amount of excitement on Sept 16th !

     

    Many thanks to Andrew Ashton for this report.