Lyons loses 100 per cent record

The previously all conquering John Lyons from Omagh, Northern Ireland, had his wings clipped very slightly down in Sussex last Sunday when he brushed a pylon on the eighth test and lost his 100 per cent record in this year’s Castrol/BT&RDA Autotest Championship. Lyons, who was just over 8 seconds in the lead at the time from the 1973 Champion Trevor Smith, thus provided a thrilling climax to a well organised event and in the last stages of the competition Smith, back with his faithful Sprite, emerged victorious by 1.1 seconds.

Chichester MC attracted an entry of 44 for their tandem test event in the town centre and arranged five tests to be tackled twice. The tests proved sufficiently difficult for most of the top names to drop clangers and fortunes fluctuated during the day. In Class 1 Maurice Flux brought his Mini across from the Isle of Wight to take the award with a total of 359.2 seconds which gave him a 6 seconds margin over Keith Winter with Nick Yoward coming into third with a 373.7 seconds total which earned him the novice award.

In Class 2 it was Lyons all the way. He opened up a sizeable gap after midway when he was only 5 seconds up on Peter Ballance, but the Mancunian again went pylon bashing and three such indiscretions dropped him out of contention and he was lucky to stay second only 1.1 seconds ahead of Mike Sones, all three being in Clubman GTs. Sones thus maintained his lead in the Silver Star series.

Class 3 produced only two entries and the 2.1 litre VW of Peter Noad was too much of a good thing for Colin Chandler’s 1600 model. Noad romped away to victory in 375.2 seconds. Class 4 for the lesser capacity saloons was easily won by Tony Hunt with his Mexico in 388.6 seconds but he had two pylons down, otherwise he would have been a strong challenger to Noad so far as BT&RDA class points were concerned, for under the latter the pair are lumped together. Dave Simmons got his first championships points with a time of 401.2 seconds, also in a Mexico, and he beat John Calton’s Mexico by 18 seconds. The bigger capacity class, Class 5, was led throughout by Pat Mann’s 1600 GT Capri for a total of 407.9 seconds with Philip Neate a distant second in his Saab V4.

Cliff Robinson is the new sports car class leader. In finishing second to Smith with a 351.0 seconds total, Robinson has put his Sprite into a one point lead with 16 points as the previous leader Denis Beare had a dreadful time pylon bashing and failed to score. The consistent Mike Halliday brought his Sprite home third, 9 seconds behind Robinson, while Roy Alcock’s Ford engined Sprite was fourth. Peter Cox was in contention early on with his Sprite but blew the diff and although he got going again, he was out of the running.

BTD: T. Smith (Sprite), 327.7 s,

Class winners: M. Flux (Mini), 359.2 s; J. Lyons (Clubman GT), 328.8 s; P. Noad (VW), 375.2 8; A. Hunt (Mexico), 388.6 s; P, Mann (Capri), 407.9 s; C. Robinson (Sprite), 351.0 s; J. Green (Mini), 424.3 s. Ladies: Mrs Pamela Barney (Cooper), 422.4 s,