Anthony
returns for Radical championship decider
Following
his impressive Radical Enduro debut at Croft recently in
which he set a new lap record in his first race in 3 years,
Anthony returned once again to the cockpit of a Radical
SR3 this weekend at Donington Park. He partnered championship
leader James Richardson as James’s usual partner Ben Devlin
was away in California at Laguna Seca on ALMS duties. The
aim of the weekend was to try & tie up the SR3 championship
that Richardson was leading in the InsureAndGo.com / Trackdays.co.uk
sponsored car. Two finishes of 5th place or above were suffice
to achieve this.
The
weekend started well as they qualified third in class and
in Sunday’s first race in the dry, they finished 2nd behind
main title rival Nigel Redwood who was partnered by Alex
Mortimer. After this result, Anthony & James only needed
3 points for Richardson to take the title by finishing no
lower that 15th place in Sunday’s second & final race. Heavy
rain during the second race made conditions treacherous,
but James made a good start to run in 3rd place. However,
coming into the chicane at the end of the lap, he was collected
by Eric Zwart who outbraked himself and slewed across the
grass and into the back of James, breaking his rear suspension.
He
managed to limp the car back into the pitlane & the Race
Team Solutions crew did an excellent job of replacing a
rear upright on the car in an amazingly short period of
time, allowing it back into the race, albeit 7 laps down
on the leader. Anthony chased hard during his stint, knowing
that a point could be achieved by posting fastest lap, which
he achieved with a lap time 3 tenths of a second faster
than his rivals.
The
extra point meant that Richardson and Redwood finish the
season tied equally on 428 points, but Redwood becomes champion
through the fact that he scored more wins throughout the
year. “The rain made things difficult; the car was aquaplaning
all the time & visibility was terrible; at times you just
couldn’t see the edge of the track, let alone the cars in
front of you. I just tried to keep my foot in & the car
on the black stuff!” said Dunn after the race. “I feel very
sorry for James, as he was just the victim of a racing incident,
but these things happen in motorsport.”
Anthony
will be racing again at Brands Hatch in the Britsports winter
series.
