slippery when wet 2020 oulton park race reports

MGCC MG Cup supported by Peter Best Insurance

The Rover Metros of Jack Ashton and Mike Williams continued their battle for honours in the MG Cup, with Ashton claiming both wins.

Ashton had qualified on pole for the opener and led the race throughout. Williams was never far behind, but rued his misestimate of the impact that a safety-car start would have on the number of laps. Not wanting to show his hand too soon, Williams fired in the fastest lap on what turned out to be the final tour, but ran out of laps to challenge further, falling less than a second short.

Third place went to Class B winner Darren Harris in his ZR 170, just edging Kayleigh Twigger’s Class C Rover 220 Tomcat Turbo, and earning himself Driver of the Race honours in the process. Dennis Robinson was second in Class B despite a 10-second penalty for overtaking under the safety-car release, having started from the pitlane after being late out of the assembly area. The same fate befell son Carl in his Class A ZR 160 although he still did enough to win the class.

Twigger’s second fastest qualifying time gave her a maiden pole position for race two, and she led until standing water caused her engine to splutter. She slipped back to fifth before losing control on the final lap, and sadly collecting Stuart Tranter’s similar Tomcat in the incident.

Ashton benefited from Twigger’s misfortune, and survived a trip down the escape road at Hislop’s, to repeat his earlier success over Williams.

“I couldn’t see anything behind Kayleigh, so I take my hat off to Mike driving behind me at the speed he was,” said Ashton. “The wipers were flat out and it was just not clearing the screen quick enough.”

“It was mega fun [but] it was hard!” he added, reckoning the conditions were worse than in the first encounter despite managing to set a faster lap. “I pulled the wick a little bit mid-way through the race. I saw Mike was fairly close to me so I thought, ‘Let’s just go for it!’”

Harris again took Class B honours in third, ahead of Peter Burchill (ZS 180) and Class A winner Carl Robinson, whose success was enough to clinch the overall championship title. Second in Class B meant Dennis Robinson scooped the class title, while Williams took Class C championship honours.

Eighth overall and second in Class A earned Morgan Short (Rover 216 GTi) the Driver of the Race, having coped admirably well in the treacherous conditions despite his limited experience.

We would like to thank all the marshals volunteers and officials for allowing us to race this season and our sponsor Peter Best Insurance Services, together with our media partner MySuperCar. Plans now start for 2021 season #fillthegrid2021

Photo Credit Dickon Siddall Race Report by MGCC.