Jack Walker-Tully scored a maiden VW Racing Cup win driving up from eighth on the grid around a drying Rockingham circuit.
It took him only five laps to drive from his starting position – outside of the top six inverted from yesterday’s finishing order – to the lead. The final part of his drive to the front was completed on the drag out of the Brook chicane and over the line, his Cooke & Mason entered Scirocco beating Aaron Mason to the line by 54 thousandths.
That slender margin soon grew, fuelled by Walker-Tullly’s setting fastest lap, expanding to more than six seconds over the remaining laps. The gap stood at 6.3 seconds across the line, Mason holding second place. He, in turn, was 3.9 ahead of VW Racing Cup debutant Jason Tingle who started from the outside of the front row. The earliest moments of the race were led by Chris Panayiotou, starting from pole after finishing Saturday’s race in sixth.
However, he went wide at the Deene hairpin, allowing Mason to take the lead. A lap later at the same corner Saturday winner David Sutton completed his charge into the lead and looked set to stamp his mark on another contest, pulling out a second’s lead on Sutton as they started lap four. However, he would follow his SlideSports teammate Panayiotou in making a mistake at Deene, outbraking himself and falling from the lead back into the battle between Joe McMillan and Lucas Orrock.
Now caught between challenging Tingle for the final spot on the podium and keeping McMillan at bay Sutton was unable to show the same pace he had done to drive up to the lead. As the race continued Tingle was able to pull away, leaving Sutton more and more concerned with defence. In fourth he finished as the head of a four car train as he, McMillan, Orrock and Phil House were all separated from each other by less than a second.
Michael Epps in eighth was the best Golf between seven Sciroccos with Bobby Thompson chasing him home. Joe Fulbrook completed the top ten, having lost two places after sliding wide at Deene on the penultimate lap.
Pole man Panayiotou sunk to twelfth pace over the 11 laps completed in the 20 minute race.
