Hindley Heads The Field

As the Tour enters its final day the Porsche 911SC of Phil Hindley and Andy Bull leads the competition field by nearly one and a half minutes with Roger Kilty and Lynette Banks in second place in their Ford Escort RS1600. Jeremy Cooke and Mike Dowd complete the top 3 in their 3 litre Porsche RSR.

Yesterday produced a number of retirements with mechanical problems including the Shelby Mustang of Robert Hartley and Evelyn Boscawen on the opening stage of the day while Mark Freeman and Kevin Kivlochan suffered gearbox failure on their Shelby Cobra in qualifying for the race at Croft. In true Tour Britannia spirit, however, they restarted the event this morning in a 2.7RS Porsche.

Mike Smith and Ian Ashley suffered transmission issues on their RSR Porsche after former Grand prix race Ashley put in an impressive performance in the Croft race which was win by the Targa category Radical SL of Evo journalist Richard Meaden with Hindley second in the Porsche. Another Porsche duo to hit problems were Philip Walker and John Clark who put their RSR in a ditch on the final stage of the day at the Yorkshire Showground.

Richard Meaden and Jethro Bovingdon dominate the Targa category in their Radical ahead of the Aston Martin DB7 of Liam Brady and David Shepherd after John and Duncan Freeman were side-lined with electronic problems on their Mazda MX5 in qualifying at Croft and Renault 5 duo Tony and Pia Bianchi had engine problems before the Raby Hall stage.

Steve and Tony Graham lead the Regularity category in their Lancia Fulvia just 5.6 seconds ahead of Melissa Raven and Jeremy Haycock. The Porsche pairing lead their class as do third placed Neil Oatley and Fred Gallagher in their Volvo P544.

Friday sees competitors visiting Harewood Hillclimb course twice, at the start and end of the day, and taking in Blyton and Newark as well as a race at the beautiful Cadwell Park circuit. The event finishes back at Rudding Park in Harrogate.