DSC: Euser and Short win Silverstone races

Cor Euser and Martin Short shared the wins in the opening round of the Dutch Supercar Challenge at Silverstone on Easter weekend.

Short edged an amazing battle with the similar Mosler MT900R of former Australian F3 champion, Ben Clucas, in the opening one-hour race on Saturday held in damp conditions. Short gambled on slick tyres and tip-toed around the circuit in his first stint until the track started to dry. He then reeled in Clucas and the pair rubbed paint several times before Short broke free to claim the win.

Clucas, who shared his Topcats Racing-run car with Andrew Beaumont, finished second while Kevin Riley’s self-run entry was third, completing a clean sweep of the podium for Moslers.

Peter Versluis’ Mad & Daring Team GT2 Ferrari F430 was fourth ahead of the Zero R Racing GT3 430 of Dave Basu and another GT2 Ferrari driven by Marcos Racing International’s Euser.

Michael Donovan won the SS1 class in his In2Racing Porsche 997 ahead of the similar cars of Henk Thuis (Intrax Racing) and Rob Frijns (Carworld Motorsport).

There was chaos at the start of race 2 as Riley lost control of his car and the unfortunate Paul White ended up flipping his Mosler after running off the track in avoidance and hitting a rough area of loose soil left by Silverstone’s construction work.

After officials cleared up the resulting mess, there was only time for a seven-lap sprint in which Euser beat Short by just under two seconds. The Beaumont / Clucas Mosler was third.

Jaap van Lagen won the SS1 class in the Bas Koeten Racing Porsche 997 he shared with Wolf Nathan, while Donovan finished second and the KTM X-bow of Piet Versluis was third.

The separate races for the SS2 and SP1 were won by the BMW E46 M3 of Pieter van Soelen and the Saker GT of Derwin Belt.

Van Soelen took race 1 in his JR Motorsport-prepared car ahead of Belt and Marco Poland in a second JR Motorsport BMW. The same team also won the SP1 class as the BMW E36 M3 of Richard van den Bos and Bert van der Zweerde finished well clear of the Tom and James Webb’s similar car. The European Talents Racing BMW 1 Series of Koen Bogaerts and Mark van der Aa was third.

In race 2, Sea Biscuit Racing’s Belt was a comfortable winner, although the star of the race was Diedrick Sijthof in the Moritz Racing-run Marcos Mantis, who charged from the back of the 27-car grid to finish second. Van Soelen was third.

Boegarts and van der Aa claimed victory in the SP1 class ahead of the van den Bos / van der Zweerde and Team Webb BMWs.

Watch highlights of the Dutch Supercar Challenge season-opener from Silverstone on Motors TV (Sky Channel 413, Virgin Media 545) on Saturday 24 April at 2pm (BST).


Andy Wilkinson

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