Donington Race Report Round 5 and 6 Mg Cup

MGCC MG Cup supported by Peter Best Insurance

Both races for the MG Cup supported by Peter Best Insurance featured intense battles for first between championship leader Richard Buckley in his Rover Tomcat and Mike Williams, who appears now to have ironed out the previous reliability problems of his rapid Metro GTi. The pair took a win apiece.

Williams’ Metro starting second beat Buckley off the line in both races though in both Buckley was able to move back into first place in short order; his fast-in-a-straightline Tomcat looking more suited to Donington than Williams’ Metro. In race one however Buckley lost his power steering as it lost its fluid when the filler pot came away. This let Williams get with him and after a long and frenetic place-swapping fight Williams dived past at the chicane at the end of the final lap to win – though Williams thought it was the penultimate lap as the chequered flag was waved a few seconds early.

Race two was a repeat performance but with his steering problems now sorted Buckley was able to turn the tables to win, managing the gap to Williams behind.

“It was really really hard work,” Buckley said of his race without power steering, “Mike was all over me and I was just doing as much as I could to keep just to keep in front and not hit him! Every time he came around the outside of me I was hanging onto the car! If he’d known the trouble I was having he’d have gone the other side. The last corner – gutting!

“Second race [was] just awesome, it was really a case of managing the gap and managing my tyres; Mike is always on the edge. I know he’ll try his absolute damnedest and his tyres will go off.”

“That was about as intense as it can get I think!” said Williams of the two battles. “I think we both lost control of the cars!,” he added of his late race one pass to win “I was completely locked up at the front end, it was do or die basically! It was all good fun, we don’t knock each other’s cars or anything – it’s hard racing but fair.”

Dave Nixon finished third in both races, hanging on to the battling front pair in the first race to finish less than a second shy.

Ian Boulton in race one charged though the field to win Class B, starting from a lowly grid slot after his engine blew up in qualifying and he had to replace it for the race. The performance got him Driver of the Race. Boulton was nudged off on lap two of race two, losing him a lot of time and Iain Dowler that time took the Class B victory with a fine drive to fourth overall. Carl Robinson claimed both Class A wins, while Ed Davies in a ZR and Chris Hughes in a Rover 100 split the invitational class wins.

Kayleigh Twigger got Driver of the Race for race two after an intense battle for sixth place with Peter Burchill’s 180, in which she only came up short when her Tomcat coughed short of fuel in the run to the line.

Race Report from MGCC Website – https://www.mgcc.co.uk/motorsport/about-mgcc-motorsport/news-events/