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Results
Photo © Carl Arnold Tigwell's winning ways Round 2 - Glynneath 16/06/02 Bruce Tigwell won the second round of the Goodyear British Off Road Championship at Glynneath on the 15th and 16th June in a dramatic event which not only saw Tigwell's return to form, but also blew the championship wide open. Paul Choat started as he had finished at Tunbridge Wells blitzing the competition in the early laps to take a strong lead until gaining a maximum penalty on the last run of day one, effectively putting him out of contention. The six and a half mile course had a bit of everything. Clerk of the Course Selwyn Kendrick had found a good flowing course on fairly smooth tracks, which was slowed only by the numerous junctions, a handful of hairpins and some gully crossings. Not to mention the slippery surface conditions. The character of the course altered dramatically with the weather during the weekend, leading Mick Gillett to say "We have had three completely different tracks this weekend!", without a single course change!
Both Keith and Sally Lewis from Abergavenny and Bruce and Nicola Tigwell had bad starts to Saturday. Keith and Sally had wiper failure which on the already wet course and in the pouring rain meant they dropped a significant amount of time. Bruce on the other hand took a little longer to get to the bottom of his problem - his seat! Off the pace in the morning of Saturday Bruce's team were at a loss to explain why, until Bruce admitted to being in some considerable pain whilst competing. He was relieved to find that far from being old age catching up with him, as he no-doubt thought, the cause of his pain was a collapsed seat. A large piece of foam did the trick and Bruce's lap times instantly plummeted by over 20 seconds and continued to drop. One of the worst starts plagued Richard Kershaw who broke his rear diff on the first lap. At least he was able to repair his vehicle, Modified Production Class leader Richard Hopkins destroyed his gearbox on the first lap and declared his weekend over, and Paul Leworthy with his awesome newly finished racer broke a propshaft on the start line!
Trevor Milner, whose immaculate Toyota Hilux - Race Truck revels in the rough conditions, made the decision to fly the first of the marked hazards on the course, in an attempt to pull back some time on some of the more powerful opposition. The result of the attempt was to stand the vehicle on its nose before it pirouetting and ending up in the back on its wheels in the trees. Fortunately only superficial front-end body damage was done and Trevor was able to continue to fight for third with Richard Kershaw on day two. Last minute clutch problems for Trevor promoted Richard to a happy third overall.
David Eggington was another of the fast starters, with his Simmbugghini seemingly cured of its engine maladies David ran second for the first three laps before a dramatic roll dropped him down to 16th. With windscreen removed and air scoop re-modelled David clawed his way back into the top ten, before a propshaft let go on the second run of day two. Following his vehicle destroying roll at the Tunbridge Wells event, Simon Dowdeswell has done a tremendous job of putting his Defender 90 back together with the help of main sponsors Tim Fry Land Rovers. The vehicle looks as stunning as ever and Simon capitalised on Richard Hopkins early demise to claim a fine first in the Modified Production Class. He was not without competition though Tony Walmsley who is getting the hang of the ex-ADI Engineering Land Rover ran him close, as did Paul Clackett in his Range Rover.
There was drama too in the small engined Production Vehicle Class. Nik Ward and his Suzuki Vitara who had appeared out classed by the new Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin of Colin Read at the first event led for most of the weekend. Nik was only eclipsed by Colin after suffering a puncture on the run 10. Worse, though was to befall the now hard-charging Shogun Pinin. Colin punctured then rolled at about 50mph destroying the front suspension in the process. The Shogun Pinin was badly damaged and Colin and navigator Chris Eade suffered some minor cuts and bruises. Nik then took the class win and just missed out on a top ten placing, in the process opening the class out once more to a real battle for championship honours. After 78 miles of tough off road racing just 21 seconds separated Bruce Tigwell in first overall with Keith and Sally Lewis in second. Indeed the top four were spread over only two minutes. With an awards list that reads quite differently to the first round in Tunbridge Wells, the Goodyear British Off Road Championship is now wide open. No-one has any distinct advantage after round 2. Whilst it is Bruce Tigwell that now leads the championship, his margin is very small and four or five contenders behind him are all in with a very serious chance. In the classes too nothing is predictable and all things are to play for as the circus moves to Scotland in July for Round 3!
Results 1 Bruce Tigwell (Tigwell 4x4) 2h36m22s 2 Keith Lewis (Simmbugghini) 2h36m43s 3 Richard Kershaw (Amaterati) 2h37m28s 4 Trevor Milner (Milner R4) 2h38m38s 5 Alec Lofthouse (Indipendant) 2h40m00s 6 Dave Bakewell (TMC) 2h50m59s 7 Mick Gillett (Simmbugghini) 3h00m13s 8 Ryan Cooke (TMC Special) 3h00m19s 9 John Scott (Range Rover spl) 3h02m01s 10 Paul Choat (Simmbugghini) 3h07m01s For our full results service as an Adobe Acrobat download click here. Results for Round 1 - Tunbridge Wells
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