Sports Carazing duo Martin Thorpe and Gary Skipp achieved a steady victory in the North Wales 3h GT4 event, narrowly beating CarFunMostly by a margin of twelve laps.
This was the second DiSCA GT4 race event to be held at NWSCC in Denbigh, Wales, following a successful inaugural meeting in 2023. Garage 27 were hot of the heels of their Rockingham victory last month, reigning champion Scott Dumayne was paired with the excellent John Underwood, and CarFunMostly’s Wayne Lander would be joined by multiple analogue British Champion Lewis Gough, making this one of the most competitive GT4 races ever to be held.
CarFunMostly quickly established the pace and identified themselves as the class of the field. The McLaren 12c is one of the strongest cars in the formula and with two strong drivers with a good amount of track knowledge it would be a tough ask to beat them. Underwood and Dumayne struggled with some inconsistency with their Aston Martin, while Garage 27 seemed to lack the edge they’d demonstrated at Rockingham. Sports Carazing had switched to new body on their Aston Martin and showed a strong pace in the qualifying races.
Come the green flag, it was CarFunMostly leading from Sports Carazing. However, the McLaren soon betel a series of mishaps when the wheels of the car began making their bid for freedom, one by one. It seemed as if as soon as one loose wheel was refitted, another one would work loose! The time this cost dropped Lander down sixth place. Carazing would run a third minute stint strategy at odds with the rest of the field, and after Thorpe handed over it was Underwood at the front of the field.
Approaching the second hour, it was Sports Carazing back in front as their sister Aston began to struggle, while CarFunMostly recovered through the field and closing the gap to leader to around ten laps. Once more during the final hour the McLaren needed attention, and once more the gap was closed by a hard charging Lewis Gough. By the time the final drivers were installed for both Sports Carazing and CarFunMostly, the gap had stabilised between ten and twelve laps, and it seemed that the early extra pace of CarFunMostly had dissipated through its various repairs.
Sports Carazing would take the chequer by staying consistent and maintaining the gap to second place. The penultimate lap of the race by Skipp was 8.9 seconds, the fastest the car had gone all weekend, yet still shy of the best times by other cars. Sometimes it isn’t the fastest car that wins the race.
The next DiSCA GT4 event will be a turn to Rockingham, August 24th.
