CLUB AUTOSPORT NATIONAL REPORTS
74 AUTOSPORT.COM 18 APRIL 2019HAWKIN
STwo victories from
three for BrownTwo wins and a third place were
Holstein’s haul on first ST outingCHESTERMONDELLO PARK
IMRC
13-14 APRILErik Holstein starred at the opening
meeting of the season at Mondello
Park, the former champion showjumper
romping home to take race-one victory
on his Fiesta ST debut.
This earned him a sixth-place reversed-
grid spot for race two. No doubt buoyed
by his earlier glory, Holstein swept round
the outside of the Murray Motorsporttrio of Alex Denning, Michael
Cullen and Dave Maguire at Turn 1.
He subsequently displaced Barry-John
McHenry for second and closed down
leader Graham McDonnell. McDonnell
put up a stern defence, though, and
when Holstein eventually managed to
get around the outside at Turn 1, the
resulting contact dropped McDonnell
way back, while Holstein rejoined in
third behind Cullen and Denning.
As Denning grabbed the lead into Turn 1,
Holstein got his head down and closed upon the pair. He ran out of laps, though, and
the trio crossed the line in close formation.
In race three, Holstein worked his way up
from sixth to take win number two.
Matthew Nicholl took a thrilling
Ginetta Junior opener. Race two was
equally exciting, as Nicholl had to
overcome Christopher Grimes and
Robbie Parks to do the double, the
trio crossing the line together.
Paul O’Connell’s newly acquired Dallara
World Series by Renault machine took
a pair of BOSS Ireland wins, despite theEx-Hamilton rival Brown
shows class with F1000 double
BRANDS HATCH
750MC
13-14 APRILLewis Hamilton’s old karting adversary
Colin Brown was the star of the opening
event of the 750 Motor Club’s 80th
anniversary year at Brands Hatch.
Brown, who reached Euro 3000 in
the early 2000s, returned to the cockpit
in the F1000 series. He raced into the
distance in the first and third races and
finished a strong third in the reversed-
grid contest. Dan Gore was victorious
in race two after absorbing last-lap
pressure from Paul Butcher.
A standout performance from
Matthew Booth in his first F1000
event bodes well for his season after
he took two second places; the same
goes for Robert Welham, who showedstrong pace but suffered a broken driveshaft
on Saturday and an exclusion for an
underweight car in the next race.
There were two tight races in the
Classic Stock Hatch Championship,
with Lee Scott diving round the outside
into Druids in his Ford Fiesta XR2i to
take the lead from the Citroen AX of
Andrew Thorpe in the first bout, while
behind an intense battle raged for the final
podium spot. In the second race Scott had
to settle for third, with Matt Rozier’s
Peugeot 205 taking second and Pete
Morgan’s Fiesta flying to victory.
The Formula Vee races were fragmented
by a number of red flags. Ian Jordan (Sheane
Jordan) was the eventual race-one winner
ahead of the GAC of Daniel Hands, while
Graham Gant in his WEV FV01 took
the second-race spoils.
Peter Bove looked up for the challengeof passing Mark Glover’s Racekits Falcon for
750 Formula race-one victory until he had
to back off when the lapped Tonin Matia
spun in front of him. Oliver Collett had
been running in second when a nose failure
left him stranded at the bottom of Paddock
Hill Bend. His luck didn’t improve in the
second race after contact once again
caused a nose issue, although this time
he was able to recover to sixth place.
Race two featured another dice for
Glover and Bove, but this time it was
Bove who took the win in his Darvi Mk5.
Ben Rushworth made it two from two
in the Hot Hatch Championship, holding
a 28-second lead in his Honda IntegraHolstein jumps the highest on
Fiesta ST debut