Tony Lynch goes three from three at Lydden Hill

Wigan racer Tony Lynch secured a third Retro Rallycross Championship win of the season despite a bruising weekend of competition at Lydden Hill for the fifth round of the campaign.

Having been forced to miss the opening two rounds of the year after undergoing surgery over the winter, Tony made a successful return to action at Mondello Park to secure a double win in Ireland, meaning confidence was high heading into the 2WD Rallycross Superprix.

The event saw competitors from the 5 Nations British Rallycross Championship package join forces with racers from the BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross Championship for an all-new event.

That meant Tony would line up in a packed field up largely of Super Retro and BTRDA Classic machinery – leaving the Landsail Team Geriatric driver facing the challenge of doing battling against a number of more powerful cars.

Drawn on the back row of his heat in Q1, Tony battled hard to secure ninth overall as the leading Retro Rallycross runner and then improved to finish Q2 in an encouraging sixth spot.

Improving still further in Q3 with fifth, Tony then came successfully through his semi-final in third spot to secure his place on the grid for the final.

Lining up on the second row, Tony was working his way forwards through the pack when a clash with the Escort of Charley Moroney saw him clatter into the barriers at the bottom of the hill, bouncing back onto the circuit where he was collected by Vincent Bristow’s BMW.

Despite his Toyota MR2 sustaining heavy damage as a result, Tony was able to continue and not only took the flag in fifth overall, but also secured a maximum score amongst the Retro Rallycross runners.

It means Tony now sits third in the standings, 13 points away from top spot with three rounds left to run.

“It was fantastic to be part of some really big grids over the course of the weekend, and I enjoyed the ‘David v Goliath’ battles against the more powerful cars,” he said. “Going for overall wins was never going to be the goal considering the opposition, and it was important that I made sure I focused on the drivers I’m battling against in the Retro Rallycross Championship.

“Having succesfully come through the heats to make it into the final, things certainly didn’t go to plan with the incident at the bottom of the hill, and we were lucky that it didn’t result in us having to retire.

“The maximum points mean we are much better placed in the standings than we expected having missed the opening two rounds, and luckily we have a bit of a gap before the next round considering the fact that we’ve got a lot of work to do to repair the damage we sustained.”