An eventful opening round of the Britpart MSA British Cross Country Championship was won by Martin Cox in his GSR 206 Evo 9 after two tough days of competition in Myherin forest.
Cox got his event off to a flying start, setting the fastest time by 9 seconds on the opening run of the course. Andrew West, making his full championship debut after two Clubman wins last year, was second in his Milner R5 with Martin Gould’s Audi-powered Clio in third.
Cox continued to hold
his lead throughout the seven runs of day one although two fastest times by
West meant the advantage was down to 26 seconds going into the second day.
With Gould’s event ending with differential problems early
on it was Mike Moran who ended the day in third, setting one fastest time on
the way.
Cox kept out of trouble on day two, while still setting a
good pace, to end up with a winning margin of over six minutes. West dropped to
third after alternator problems and a blown header tank resulted in a maximum
time with Paul Myers finishing in second in his Land Rover Tornado despite
rolling his car over the flying finish at the start of the day.
Cox commented: “I’m very happy with the result, I’ve been
waiting 12 years for today! We had a great battle on day one and then it was a
case of maintaining reliability and staying on the road while other drivers
were having problems. The course was brilliant, it’s the best in the country in
my opinion. Thank you to all of the marshals and organisers for a great event.”
Moran finished fourth after being forced to stop with a
broken propshaft on his AT 4x4 Indy Challenger. Richard Green took his new
Tomcat to fifth ahead of Mark Jacques, who was giving a BCCC debut to his 3M
Challenger.
Steve Smith had an eventful weekend in his JRG Clio V8,
which appeared with missing wings on more than one occasion, but he overcame
the problems to finish 7th. Despite setting some quick times Paul
Garner finished 8th after breaking a shaft near the end of the
event.
Ryan Cooke was 9th in his Milner LRM-1, a fastest
run time on day one offset by an off on the final run. Former BRC driver Jason
Sharpe gave the Isuzu UK-supported D-Max pick up its debut and claimed 10th
place.
Alan Thomas won the Trophy class in his Warrior Gemini while
Ben Gott took the Race2Recovery Freelander to victory in the Freelander
Challenge category ahead of Ian Linford who finished second on his first event.
BCCC Results
1. Martin
Cox/Paul Carson (GSR 206 Evo 9) 2:12:122. Paul Myers/Martin Myers (Land Rover Tornado) 2:18:59
3. Andrew West/Peter Widdop (Milner R5) 2:27:53
4. Mike Moran/Tony Coid (AT 4x4 Indy Challenger) 2:28:29
5. Richard Green/Richard Griffiths (Tomcat 100) 2:33:01
6. Mark Jacques/Simon Last (3M Challenger) 2:33:40
7. Steve Smith/John Griffiths (JRG Indy Clio V8) 2:42:08
8. Paul Garner/Giles Tinkler (GSR V10) 2:54:08
9. Ryan Cooke/Lee Channing (Milner LRM-1) 2:54:48
10. Jason Sharpe/Russell Sharpe (Isuzu D-Max) 2:59:25
BCC Trophy winner: Alan Thomas (Warrior Gemini) 2:35:40
Freelander Challenge winner: Ben Gott (Freelander) 2:55:50
Freelander Challenge winner: Ben Gott (Freelander) 2:55:50
