Toyo Tyres/Watchdogapp.com Jaguar Saloon & GT Championship - Round 3 Castle Combe

Race Report

At the start Tom Robinson took the lead, dropping McGregor to second setting up a terrific battle for the next 3 laps. On lap 3 McGregor took the lead in the X300 lead & Colin Philpott also took his XJS past Robinson until a front pulley failed, forcing retirement on lap 7. James Ramm gradually progressed towards the front of the pack, reaching second with the retirement of Philpott. So McGregor lead, until and by his own admission he lost concentration, running off track , damaging the exhaust pipe, losing his rear bumper and relatively minor body damage, after contact with the Armco.

Ramm then took the lead and held it to the end, displaying another dominant performance, while further back a number of battles were taking place.

Connew made the same mistake as McGregor at the same place and retired the car, Patrick Doyle progressed his XJS up to 2^nd on lap 20 remaining in P2 to the flag,

Robinson lost a supercharger belt on lap 19 forcing him to retire and join Philpott at Quarry marshals post.

Just behind a battle for position was taking place between Mike Holt in his X300 and Dave Bye in his stunning XJ6 Coupe until Holt made a mistake at Quarry and went grass cutting. He managed to rejoin but lost the place to Bye who pulled away from the recovering Holt, Bye who drove hard to pull further away from Holt managed to finish 14.5 seconds ahead of the recovering Holt. Bye slowed a little as had a comfortable gap back to Holt but he had incurred a 15 second penalty for exceeding track limits and lost position 3 to Holt by .5 of a second so finishing on the road position 3 but position 4 in the results.

Further back, Derek Pearce in his XK8 was struggling with fuel delivery problems, Richard Knott retired his XJS on lap 19 of the 20. Chris Boon (XK8) won the battle with Gail Hill (XJS) to finish 5 & 6^th respectively, Simon Dunford and Richard Crossley both drove well, Dunford taking another class A win.while newcomer to the championship Paul Greenham in the Ex Holt XJ40 continued to learn but again notably drove well and showed great respect and awareness to leading cars towards the end of the race.

Despite an early retirement Colin Philpott posted the fastest lap overall.

Results: Overall : 1^st James Ramm 2^nd Patrick Doyle 3^RD Michael Holt.

Class A Simon Dunford, 2^nd Richard Crossley, 3^rd Paul Greenham

Class B Michael Holt, 2^nd Gail Hill.

Class C Dave Bye, 2^nd Richard Coppock.

Class D James Ramm, 2^nd Patrck Doyle, 3^rd Chris Boon

Championship leader remains James Ramm

GT driver of the day awards going to James Ramm : Saloon Driver of the day Dave Bye.

The championship now moves on for rounds 4 & 5 at Brands Hatch on July 14/15^th

Chris Robinson