After his race one misfortune, Ross Wylie took his second win of the season in the eighth APR Volkswagen Racing Cup round at Snetterton, after Aaron Mason threw away what could well have been his fifth.
With the top six finishers from race one earlier in the day reversed to determine race two’s grid, Martin Depper starting from pole position ahead of Jack Walker-Tully, the pair using their Jokers for the race that allows them to score double points. However, this would prove futile for the latter, Walker-Tully limping round to the pits at the end of the first lap.
Depper therefore lead the race, but he was under pressure from Wylie who had made a demon start from the third row of the grid up to second place. On lap three, Wylie finally made his move on the former Mini Challenge champion, dummying the KPM driver with a late lunge up the inside at Riches.
Depper’s race then went much further downhill several corners later, as Mason – having just passed Henry Gilbert for third – tagged the back of Depper heading through Oggies on the same lap, the green Scirocco R spinning down the order as Mason began to chase after Wylie.
The Slideports driver began to have his lead trimmed by his Scirocco rival over the next lap, and the lead was soon in the championship leader’s hands as he dispatched Wylie at Corum corner, where he began his effort to break clear.
Wylie kept his rival just within striking distance however, but suddenly he found himself coming across Mason’s AWM/Warranty Direct Scirocco spinning backwards into Murrays, Wylie sliding back through after taking avoiding action.
Mason re-joined in third place, but straight into the path of the Golf GTI of Gilbert who was forced into retirement with front end-damage in the process.
This promoted the flying David Sutton up to second place in his Team HARD Golf, but Mason quickly drafted past the rookie on the main straight on lap eight. Mason tried to catch the leader but it was not to be enough, Scotsman Wylie clinching a second win of the season to make up for his earlier fuel-related heartbreak.
While Mason extended his points lead with second, Team HARD Scholar Sutton claimed his first podium in the championship with third place for Tony Gilham‘s squad, while fourth place went to Stewart Lines, the second KPM driver putting in a stellar performance to charge through the field from the 11th row on the grid.
Having started there due to missing the start of race one, Lines raced up through the mid-pack in venomous fashion as he ended the second lap in eighth place. He then made his way up into the top five before overtaking race one winner Phil House, the latter finishing fifth ahead of Joe Fulbrook, Josh Caygill finishing a solid seventh ahead of a superb performance by Kieran Griffin to finish eighth.
Paul Wyhinny raced his father Peter’s SEAT to a not-at-all shabby ninth position ahead of Tom Barley, while Barley and Sutton’s team-mate Andy Wilmot was unlucky to have his race ended early by a linkage problem on his Golf GTI, Wilmot having just passed House for fifth before being forced to pull off at the hairpin.
