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Tuesday 11 April 2017

Pikes Peak news round-up


Andy Degiulio's BCCC season got off to a difficult start as he had fuel vaporisation issues all weekend but he battled on to finish 14th. "I kept losing fuel pressure when the car was driven hard," said Degiulio. "I had to stop numerous times on the course to let the fuel cool down so I could get back to service. I decided to carry on to get a finish and drove round at low RPM to get the laps in. I need to redesign the fuel delivery system before the next round. I still enjoyed the weekend and all the other BCCC crews made myself and my wife Paula feel very welcome."

Ben Duckworth set some very quick times early on be he was hampered by various electrical gremlins on his Milner LRM-1 and eventually retired.

After an extensive rebuild of his Bartletts 3M 206 Ian Bartlett made his BCCC return at Pikes Peak but was sadly forced out of the event on day one with a broken gearbox.

Richard Coleby finished 7th and 2nd in class in his Polaris RZR XP Turbo despite putting the car on its side on his penultimate run. Coleby commented: "It's massively encouraging to run the car as hard as it would go, set some great lap times ahead of some really fast cars and challenge for the class lead."

Lee Mansfield made his BCCC return after ten years away and finished 9th in his Xylo Racing Milner R5. "The car had a few issues over the weekend as it had been stood for so long which doesn't help. I was trying to learn how the car behaves, it was certainly a handful but we all had a great weekend it's a credit to all the people involved in making it happen, and more than happy to be in the top ten."

In the BCC Trophy class the Insanity Racing crew of Jon Damrel and Nic Blundell were enjoying their new manual gearbox and they had a fairly troublefree event to finish fifth.

Ian Evans, more known for flinging front wheel drive rally cars around, made his Trophy debut in his Coronda 2WD and was going well until being forced out with suspension damage.


Justin Brooks had to withdraw his BCCC entry due to work commitments but he entered Pikes Peak as a Clubman in his Yamaha and won the category in a time that would've placed him fifth in the BCCC.

In the Freelander Challenge Brian Chase used his new suspension to good effect as he was fastest on the first run but towards the end of the run his automatic gearbox went into neutral and the engine over-revved, resulting in top-end damage which forced him out of the event.

Finally, Pikes Peak saw the welcome return of Katy, crewed by Debbie and Graham. They had many customers as cars kept falling off and breaking down - the things BCCC drivers will do for a piece of flapjack!