REPORT : SILVERSTONE
Plants to the fore in 70s Road Sports the parade lap caused some anxious moments but , thankfully , the rain didn ’ t increase too much and the race ran out in largely dry conditions .
Miles Griffiths took the early lead in his Ralt RT1 and was able to edge further clear when Andrew Smith retired his March 742 with a failed battery . Instead , a tremendous contest for second raged between Matt Wrigley , Manfredo Rossi and Fraser Gibney . Meanwhile , Glenn Eagling was having a fabulous race in his GRD and closed right in on the battling trio . Wrigley eventually got second after a great contest . Further back , Callum Grant headed the Formula Atlantics while Julian Stokes and Nick Pancisi had a tremendous race-long contest for the lead of the 1600cc F2 class and Stokes finally got the verdict .
The second Historic F2 race beat the rain and delivered another glorious spectacle . Once again , Griffiths got the drop and was able to extend his lead , while main interest focused on the progress of Andy Smith and Martin Stretton , both starting at the back after problems in race one . They stormed up the field and eventually Smith moved ahead of his arrival as he closed in on second place Matthew Watts in the ex-Marc Surer car . However , Watts was getting quicker and quicker and held his ground to see off Smith while Stretton took fourth .
Michael Lyons romped away in the opening Aurora Trophy race , putting his Lola T400 well clear of the chasing pack before a safety car period bunched them up . But from the restart Lyons quickly went away as Greg Thornton ( Chevron B24 ) and the best of the
2-litre cars chased from a distance with Mike Bletsoe-Brown ( Chevron B27 ) and series newcomer Andrew Storer ( Chevron B34 ) next up .
The second Aurora Trophy race was also impacted by the weather as another shower arrived just as the cars were on the warming up lap . However , the track soon dried , but that was little consolation to Lyons who had by now parked the Lola with a problem . After retiring from the opening race , Mark Dwyer started his March 742 from the back on Sunday , but very quickly shot through to take the lead from Bletsoe- Brown .
The Dunlop Saloon Car Cup and the Historic Touring Car Championship shared a spilt grid with a fabulous field of more than 40 period touring cars . Up front Simon Garrad was the class of the field and won convincingly in his mighty Nissan Skyline . In his wake , the other
Jon Finch in CF3 / CFF2000
Mark Dwyer won the second Aurora race
56
The huge GT & SCC field