Wigton Motor Club got their season off to a flying start with round one of the HPE Construction Autotest Championship when Peter Wright was the runaway winner of the Early Spring Autosolo held at Maryport last Sunday, taking his Mini to win by ninety seconds over Peter Masters who travelled over from Durham in his Suzuki. However, Peter, who won the FWD class) was only a second up on the very smooth John Holliday in his Mazda MX5 who won the rear wheel drive (RWD class).
The day started in extremely wet conditions and the surface was very slippery. However, there was a very high standard of driving and only a couple of “wrong directions” during the hole days. It was a tribute to David Wiggins and his organising team from Wigton MC that it ran so smoothly.
Aaron Pattinson was fifth and winner of class FWD2 in his Corsa after a clean run through all the tests. Eighteen tests were run during the day with the final one being the longest at over three minutes. Drew McLean and Angus Cowan were next up in Mazda MX5 and Escort RS respectively who tied on time but were separated on who was fastest on the first test, in his case Angus.
David Agnew in his 1969 Mini was seventh ahead of Dan Grierson’s Clio and John Sloan’s Escort which was the first historic. Fourteen year old Jack Long was tenth on only his second event in a VW Fox after an error free run, a talent for the future perhaps?