Round 1
The Cuisine de France / SPAR race team won the season opening Uniroyal Fun Cup race at Croft on May 5th, taking the race win by just 1.5 seconds after three hours of close racing and an incredibly thrilling finish.
By lap 24 Richard Connell had thrust the car into the lead after an excellent run. Marc Connell then retook the lead after the second round of stops but lost out in a safety car period which dropped us back to 5th.
Great driving by Peter Cate took the car back into the lead by lap 51, and over remaining laps we were always in the top 3 only really losing position due to different pit stops or fuelling. Marc set our fastest race lap and second fastest lap of the whole race on lap 68.
As the final refuelling pit stops ended we were setting a “Relentless” pace, with Richard in a very handy 10 second lead and only 20 minutes to go. Then another safety car period to retrieve a crashed car saw our lead down to nothing with just 3 laps to the finish.
A great restart and a stunning last lap by Richard saw him take the winners flag by less than 2 second from the “Perrys” car driven by former works Peugeot Touring car driver Eugene O’Brien. What a win!
Many thanks to Will our mechanic and all at Abbey Motorsport for their help, and to our pit Guru Mike Head for getting the strategy in place.
Round 2
Fresh from the win the day before at the season’s first race, the Croft 3 hours, the Cuisine de France / SPAR race team looked forward with optimism to the next race, another 3 hour race again held at Croft circuit on Sunday May 6th.
Having won the day before, the Abbey Motorsport prepared car was now at the back of the 31 car grid as finishing positions were reversed. The only cars behind us were the five or six cars that did not finish in the first race.
Pete took the start and picked up a couple of places into the first corner. Sadly that was as far as we got, as the errant Team Tiger car ran into our offside rear wheel pushing Pete into a high speed spin.
Peter commented: “The rules mean the grid is reversed for the second race, and with an unusually disorganised start procedure, we ended up in a first corner traffic jam in which the other car drove into our rear right wheel and broke the hub. The team, especially Will, did an exceptional job to get the car out again but the gap was just too great to make up. Disappointed doesn't even get to one percent of how we feel, but at least Marc was able to set second fastest lap after we repaired the car, which bodes well for Mondello in June."
Many thanks to all at Abbey again and congratulations to out team mates in the other Abbey run car Marc Gillam and Nick Pascoe who took a great second place in the race.
Croft TV coverage dates and times
TV Coverage from Croft 5th & 6th May
TV Coverage will be shown on Raceworld
Thursday 7th June - 7.00pm (SkySports2), 10.00pm (SS2)
Friday 8th June - 1.00am (SkySportsXtra), 8.00am (SS2), 1.00pm (SS2), 4.00pm (SS3)
Saturday 9th June - 6.00am (SSX)
Next races
The next two races are at Mondello Park, Ireland on June 9th /10th. A 4 hour race starts at 1pm on Saturday with a follow up 3 hour race at 10.30am on Sunday.
Ian and Marc will take on the Mondello driving duties as Richard is working at the Canadian Grand Prix with Super Aguri, while Peter is likely to be racing in the Nurburgring 24 hours in Germany.
