Up to Speed: 21 – 22 May

Friday 20 May 2022

What’s on this weekend

Around the Clubs

There is plenty of action happening this weekend around the clubs with a wide range of different motorsport disciplines for everyone’s interests and budgets.

The 750 Club (Scotland) is holding the May P.C.T Car Trial, located at Forfar, and sticking with trials, HERO-ERA is hosting a Novice Trial 2022 at Bicester Heritage – home of Motorsport UK. With rally being such a heavy topic this weekend, why not look into doing a rally in your very own road car. Kings Lynn and District Motor Club are holding a 12 – Car Navigational Rally. Another discipline that can be done in your standard road car is an autotest. There are plenty happening over this weekend such as the Eastbourne and Ram Motor Club is holding a spring autotest and Basingstoke Motor Club is holding the Pasture Blaster – a production car autotest.

For more information on these events and how you can get started competing, be sure to visit our website.

British Historic Rally Championship and Welsh Rally Championship – Round 3, Plains Rally

The British Historic Rally Championship (BHRC) heads back to Wales for a second time this season for the Plains Rally, based in the Snowdonia National Park, which is home to some World Rally Championship protagonists such as Aberhirnant, Alwen and Clocaenog.

Three-time British Rally Champion Matt Edwards and co-driver Hamish Campbell will be ones to watch this weekend as they took a win in the second round of BHRC with a Fiat 131 Abarth and the first non-Ford Escort win for many years. Current championship leader Nick Elliot will also be trying his hand with a Fiat 131 as he swaps out of his usual Ford Escort.

Roger Chilman ,who is currently second in the standings, will not be taking part this weekend which opens the door for Matthew Robinson and co-driver Sam Collis to make their way up the standings.

You can follow the action this weekend on the British Historic Rally Championship Facebook page.

Sticking with the theme of rallying, this weekend also marks the third round of the Welsh Rally Championship which will be joining the BHRC at the Plains Rally.

Matthew Hirst and Declan Dear will be aiming to win this round and make it a three out of three wins for the 2022 season of the Welsh Rally Championship.

The Welsh Rally Championship will be streaming the Plains rally on their Facebook page. The action kicks off early Saturday morning.

British Sporting Trials Championship– Round 13, Long Compton

This weekend not only marks round 13 of the British Sporting Trials Championship but also the sporting trials festival where over 100 cars will be competing in three events at one venue; the event is being held at Long Compton. The festival is organised by the Midlands Trials Car Club and there will be classes for Heritage, Historic, Post Historic and Modern era vehicles.

The event is being run with the aim to introduce people to sporting trials who may not know about this quintessentially British motorsport and want to learn more about it.

For more information on this event please visit the British Sporting Trials Facebook page, and to find out more about how to get started in trials, visit our website.

Northern Ireland Rally Championship – Round 3, Maiden City

With the Northern Ireland Rally Championship now well underway, multiple rally winner Desi Henry and co-driver Paddy Robinson are favourites to lead the way in this weekend’s rally, organised by the Maiden City Motor Club, located near Claudy.

Henry and Robinson will have pressure behind them as a fleet of Fiesta R5’s will be right on their tails to try and take the lead away from them. Reigning and current championship leader Jonny Greer will be starting the stages fourth with co-driver Niall Burns in their Citroen C3. Eight-time N.I Rally Champion Derek McGarrity will also be competing this weekend in a VW Polo, being navigated by Graham Henderson. McGarrity is currently Greer’s closest rival in the race for the championship title. Third in the N.I Championship standings are Aaron McLaughlin and Darren Curran in their Ford Fiesta WRC; they will be starting seventh. McLaughlin is only seven points short of Greer in the standings which is sure to make for some very close stages over the weekend.

Follow the action over the weekend on the Northern Ireland Rally Championship website.

Wera Tools British Kart Championships – Warden Law

After a spectacular start to the British Kart Championships at Shenington, Warden Law plays host to the next round of the 2022 season for the IAME, TKM and KZ2 categories this weekend.

They will be joined by the Bambino class who open their season at the North East track. Designed specifically for 6-8-year-olds, the series offers the chance to get their grounding in karting and it utilises the Comer kart to ensure a level playing field throughout.

Fusion Motorsport currently occupies the top three places in the IAME Cadet championship with Jenson Graham sitting on top of the standings with a slender two-point advantage over teammate Kit Belofsky who took the all-important round one Finals win. Jesse Phillips is third heading to Warden Law but it was a tight tussle for the lead in the Shenington Finals, just 0.11s separated the podium.

A busy weekend at Shenington for Junior X30 was topped off by the Finals being decided on the very last lap, with Henry Joslyn scooping the win whilst the podium positions were fought for across the line. Fionn McLaughlin was edged into fourth or Fusion Motorsport but such was his Heat and Pre-Final performance, he heads to Warden law with a two-point advantage over a very busy Harry Burgoyne Jnr. For Senior X30, Harry Platten [BMR] enjoyed a progressive weekend at the opener to fight back from outside the podium places to take the Finals win. But it’s Aaron Walker for Strawberry Racing who leads the standings.

For TKM, Leon Frost enjoyed the perfect score in Junior TKM with victory in the Heats and Finals. Warden could throw up some surprises but it was Privateer Chris Whitton who leads the way thanks to a start-to-finish TKM Extreme Final.

James Glenister dominated the KZ2 Final but had a tricky Heat and is only fourth heading to the weekend, meaning Kell’s nearest challenger is Privateer Lee Ward; and he sits just one point behind to boot.

For the Bambino class, the young racers have had a patient wait to kick start their 2022 BKC season and Warden Law host the opening round of the year. It is an open formbook and 13 karters line up to do battle on the impressive circuit. Oman Austin makes a return to the series after taking seventh in 2021 and is joined by a wealth of newcomers as they all aim for round one glory.

For more information and live timings, be sure to visit the British Kart Championship website.