AAA Saloons: AAA Saloons Storm The Castle

The AAA Saloon Cup heads to Castle Combe on Monday August 30th for the final 2 rounds of the series as AAA Saloons reaches the climax to its debut season.

Fresh from back-to-back victories last month in the AAA Saloon races at Oulton Park, the man most likely to be drinking more champagne at Castle Combe - his local circuit - is Simon Norris, driving his awesome 800 bhp Bogey Evo, rumoured to have cost in excess of £200,000.
 

Attempting to make him at least share some of the spoils of victory will be Malcolm Wise in his Escort Cosworth, a race winner from Silverstone, and Gary Prebble, behind the wheel of his 700 bhp Sparshatts Evo VII RS, who won the second round of the AAAS season at Combe - from the back row of the grid !  Gary knows Combe like the back of his hand and set the fastest lap of the race, to follow on from his pole position.
 

But making his debut in AAA Saloons from the Dunlop Motorsport News Saloons will be Mark Biggers in his impressive Skyline, and judging by his season's form he could well be up challenging the front runners.

Ajec Racing's Laurie Kilby (Evo IX) will be hoping that his fast but unlucky season finally generates the results he's been searching for all year. He led the opening race of the year at Combe to within sight of the chequered flag before dropping to second.
 

Meanwhile Richard Jones, in his debut race season, is gaining more and more confidence in his 2.2L Launch Motorsport Evo VIII, and will be delighted to make another appearance on the rostrum should any of the expected front runners get a wheel out of line.
 

In GpB, for cars limited to 400 bhp, Steve Liquorish in the Ergo/JRM Evo X is likely to be the front runner, although it must be said that Combe is not his favourite circuit; he's already had 2 expensive accidents there this season, one in his Evo (making its race debut) and the other in the Mini Challenge.
 

With three GpB wins under his belt from the earlier rounds Martin Thomas (in his first season of racing) driving the Somerset Storage Evo VIII has his fingers crossed that he'll once again be taking some champagne home with him.
 

The man to beat in this year's Nippon Challenge - taking the majority of race wins -  is Vaughan Fletcher and this weekend he's returning to AAA Saloons to see how his race-winning Subaru Impreza RA matches up with the GpB Evos. He'll once again be joined by Ian Froggatt, in another Subaru, both cars built by the Scooby Clinic. Both drivers made impressive AAA debuts at Oulton last month, and enjoyed the series so much they are back for more.
 

Making his AAA Saloons debut will be the very experienced Malcolm Stevens who will be driving his twin-turbo Mitsubishi GTO and hoping his decades of race experience will counteract his power disadvantage when he competes at his local circuit.

Completing the mixture of Group B cars are Angus Gorringe - he made his race debut at Combe at the end of last year - who will be racing his Tangerine Audi S2, while David Harries is hoping that his Subaru will be a lot more reliable than his last outing at Oulton Park where he failed to even finish qualifying.

Motors TV are broadcasting a 25 minute programme from each race at Castle Combe.


Simon Cooke