Last weekend’s Rallycross event at Lydden Hill, counting towards the British as well as the Belgian Rallycross Championships, was won by English Ford campaigner Kevin Procter in SuperCars.
The season opener of the British Rallycross Championship at Lydden Circuit was already the second round counting for the Belgian Rallycross titles. Therefore, the cradle of the Rallycross sport hosted an event with a huge amount of starters, a total of 48 participants for to claim Belgian points in the 5 car categories while another 60 starters raced in the different native British classes.
The most exotic guest at Lydden was the double Rally champion of Iceland Jón Bjarni Hrólfsson (Subaru Impreza). The man from the far north came to the deepest south of the British island to have a bit of fun and to gain some Rallycross experience. At the end of the weekend “Jón B” made it to 10th overall in SuperCars and claimed to be back to Rallycross action soon. Rather flamboyant than exotic was the attendance of double European champion in Super1600s Norwegian Andreas Bakkerud. “Mister Baby Blue” competed for the first time with his 2013 Citroën DS3 SuperCar to show that he was quickly able to adopt to double the amount of horsepower. After setting twice the fastest times in the second and third heats Bakkerud ensured himself the first ever SuperCars final pole position. However, the last race of the weekend ended in retirement, due to a broken engine, and the extrovert man from the harbour town of Bergen found himself on 8th place of the SC final results only. Another SuperCar driver with bad luck at Lydden was Jochen Coox, the broken turbocharger of his VW Scirocco Mk3 forced the Belgian into early retirement during the first heat on Saturday already. If the engine is also damaged needs to be checked with Trollspeed in Sweden now.
While timed practice saw Briton Kevin Procter (Ford Focus Mk2) as the only SuperCar driver to set a lap time under 47 seconds the first qualifying heat was dominated by Dutch-Italian Jos Kuijpers (Ford Focus Mk3) whose time was almost three seconds faster than the of his strongest opponents here. However, on Sunday evening it was the English duo Kevin Procter and reigning British champion Julian Godfrey who defended home soil against Kuijpers from the Netherlands and Koen Pauwels from Belgium.
In the Super1600s class that Dutchman Marcel Snoeijers debuted his new Renault Mégane RS Mk3 with a somewhat surprising victory, first race resulted in first win. In TouringCars it was Irishman Derek Tohill (Ford Fiesta Mk7 RWD) who celebrated St. Patrick’s Day far away from the Emerald Isle with just another overall victory. While the SuperNational +2000 winner of the 1st BRC round had been Steven Maris (Volvo 240) and the runner-up Kristof Bex (Volvo S40 Mk1), at Lydden it was the other way round, resulting into an ex-aequo situation in the point standings. Victory in SuperNationals -2000 was claimed by Steven Stessens, the Vauxhall Corsa driver thereby placed himself on top of the SN- scoreboard.
- FINAL RESULTS SUPERCARS:
- 1. Kevin Procter (GB) Ford Focus Mk2
- 2. Julian Godfrey (GB) Ford Fiesta Mk6
- 3. Jos Kuijpers (I) Ford Focus Mk3
- 4. Koen Pauwels (B) Ford Focus Mk2
- 5. Pat Doran (GB) Citroën DS3
- 6. Jos Jansen (B) Ford Focus Mk3
- 7. Patrick Van Mechelen (B) Ford Fiesta Mk7
- 8. Andreas Bakkerud (N) Citroën DS3
- FINAL RESULTS SUPER1600S:
- 1. Marcel Snoeijers (NL) Renault Mégane Mk3
- 2. Dennis Remans (B) Ford Fiesta Mk6
- 3. Bart Stouten (B) Toyota Yaris Mk1
- 4. Davy Van Den Branden (B) Citroën DS3
- 5. Russell Simpson (GB) Citroën C2
- 6. Darren Scott (GB) Suzuki Swift Sport RS
- 7. Willem Veltman (NL) Citroën C2
- 8. Dave Van Beers (B) Renault Clio Mk2
- FINAL RESULTS TOURINGCARS:
- 1. Derek Tohill (IRL) Ford Fiesta Mk7 RWD
- 2. Jos Sterkens (B), Volvo C30/4 RWD
- 3. Ivo Van den Brandt (B) Mitsubishi Colt CZT RWD
- 4. Mandy Kasse (NL) Ford Fiesta Mk7 RWD
- FINAL RESULTS SUPERNATIONALS +2000:
- 1. Kristof Bex (B) Volvo S40 Mk1
- 2. Steven Maris (B) Volvo 240
- 3. Henri Vangeneugden (B) Volvo 240
- 4. David Vannijlen (B) Volvo 240
- 5. Danny De Beuckelaer (B) Opel Corsa B
- 6. Roger Lippens (B) Ford Escort Mk3
- 7. Ludo Vangeneugden (B) Volvo 240
- 8. Filip Vanderheyden (B) Volvo S40 Mk2
- FINAL RESULTS SUPERNATIONALS -2000:
- 1. Steven Stessens (B) Vauxhall Corsa B
- 2. Tom Meeusen (B) Mitsubishi Lancer
- 3. Yves Moonen (B) Opel Kadett D
- 4. André Geebelen (B) Peugeot 206
- 5. Marc Vandenbergh (B) Seat Ibiza Mk2
- 6. Martijn Vanhove (B) Toyota MR2 Mk1
- 7. Kurt Lambers (B) Ford Sierra Cosworth
- 8. Jef Mertens (B) Opel Astra F
