Last updated 19:40, Thursday, 08 May 2008

THERE was plenty of action over the holiday weekend for our local drivers and navigators.

SPEED: John Willis from Bulgill and his MG Metro

The week-long Celtic Malts finished in Stirling, the Berwick Classic took place over the weekend and the third round of the TJ Services Northern Speed Championship took place at Teesside.

The Wigton MC-run sprint took place in much better weather than on Good Friday and there were some good times recorded with Penrith driver Colin Birkbeck taking FTD in his Caterham, beating all the single-seater cars.

The event had a full entry with the usual championship contenders being joined by the Morgan Speed Championship.

The small capacity historics fell again to Jim Evans’ MG Midget with a time that embarrassed many modern and more powerful cars.

Stewart Middleton’s beautiful Datsun 240Z Samurai won a closely contested larger engined historics class in a close battle with Peter Sewell’s MG B and Tim Stamper from Penrith in his lovely Aston Martin.

The roads cars were equally close with R1 going to David Wiggins 205R by a fraction from Ant Lomas in his 106R. The larger road cars saw a clear win from Daniel Bird in his Subaru with Chris Harris in second place in his Lotus Elise.

The Morgan Speed Championship class was won by Chris Bailey in his Plus 4.

The modified class saw an eclectic group of cars with fairly close times. Martyn Stott’s supercharged Elise winning by half a second from Mike Hunter’s Metro, Stewart Middleton’s Peugeot and John Willis’s Metro.

With Colin Birkbeck winning outright class M2 went to the Coleman family in their Striker with Terry pipping Darren. The Sports Libre class went Angus Buchan’s Radical from Chris Boyd’s Westfield. Despite suffering engine problems Peter Garforth took the racing car class with his Hawke.

The next round is on June 1 at Kames.

Results are awaited for the Celtic Malts. The Berwick Classic was an excellent event as usual with some good tests and organisation, plus a big entry. On the Sunday part of the event which was a counter in the GK Group Historic Championship there was a Wigton MC domination with our local crews taking the top two places. With just one test to go David Agnew/Graeme Mactavish and Richard and Edwin Cook were equal on time and the Mini of the Cooks ended up beating the Porsche duo by just a second!

This weekend we have the Barbon National Hill Climb at Barbon Manor near Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday.

All the leading runners in the British Hill Climb Championship will be there with current title holder Martin Groves hoping to retain his title.

There is a rather disappointing turnout from other entries, mainly due to the time wasting tactics of the championship drivers last year. However Mark Hemingway will be out in his Force and Terry Coleman in his Sylva Striker. Practice is from 10am and timed runs from 1pm.

Entry forms for the Lake District Hotels sponsored Cumbria Classic Caper are now on line at www.wigtonmc. The event takes place on July 6 and features some 22 special tests on private land.

Also available are entry forms for the events in the Cumbria Classic Weekend on August 16/17, featuring the Pennine Classic Tour and the Cumbria Classic Show at Dalemain. The show is also the Cumbrian part of National Motorsport Week.