YATTON Keynell’s Luke Cooper further cemented his overall advantage by taking his sixth successive Formula Ford triumph at Castle Combe’s inaugural TCR UK meeting at the weekend.

Cooper bagged pole position by 0.177secs from Josh Fisher, last year’s champion, in the Formula Ford 1600 Championship.

The race was initially red-flagged when Tom Hawkins ran into trouble, and on the restart, Cooper lost out to Bridgwater’s Fisher, before regaining the lead a few laps later.

Fisher finished 1.6 seconds back, with David Vivian, from Bradford on Avon, completing the podium.

“I am absolutely ecstatic,” said Cooper.

“It has been an amazing year so far. I couldn’t really have asked for much more here – six out of six, I am really happy with it.

“I was a bit fortunate with the red flag because I was quite a long way off the leader at that point.

“The red flag brought us back into it. I didn’t get the best of starts and Josh got a very good start and was able to pull out a bit of a gap on the first couple of laps.

“But I was able to catch that back up and then get past him and got into the lead.

“Once I had broken the tow, I was able to put in consistent lap times and pull away.

“Overall, it has been a bit of a dream year to date at Castle Combe

“We have been really fast in the Avon Tyres Formula Ford National Championship as well, but have not been as fortunate with the results.”

Cooper later followed up his win with a third, eighth and a 10th in the three National races – all won by Championship leader Niall Murray.

Pole sitter Barry Squibb piloted his Mitsubishi Evo 9 2200 to victory in the Castle Combe GT Simonstone Championship, finishing 12.1 seconds up on Steve Putt.

Tony Bennett was third – and also took the class B honours – ahead Stanton St Quintin’s Alan Hamilton, only 0.530secs back after the 15 laps.

Westbury on Trym’s Tim Woodman, Bristol’s Paul Arber, Bath’s Stephan Lansley and Wesbury’s Adam Hall were ninth, 12th, 13th and 16th respectively – the latter claiming Class E honours.

In the 32-car strong Castle Combe Saloon Car National Windscreen Championship, Gary Prebble moved into the lead on lap seven, before bringing his Seat Leon Cupra 20v T home 3.8 seconds ahead of Calne’s Simon Thornton-Norris.

Melksham’s Neil Greenland was the Class B winner in seventh, while Adrian Slade – also from Melksham – took home gold in Class C (and 12th overall).

In the TCR UK Touring Car Championship, Huddersfield man Dan Lloyd won both races for WestCoast Racing, although he was demoted to second in the first after picking up a one second penalty for ‘driving in a manner incompatible with general safety’, handing pole man Oliver Taylor the inaugural race win.

Bristol’s James Colbourne did the double in the Teekay Couplings Production GTi Championship.

Adam Southgate won two of the Toyo Tires Porsche Championship races and James Coleman took the third.

Steve Roberts won the first BRSCC Mazda MX-5 SuperCup race, before James Blake-Baldwin bagged gold in the second and third races.

Michael Watton took a clean sweep of wins in the three Speed Group F1000 Championship races, with Steven Daily the double victor in Nankang Tyres BMW Compact Cup and Tom Stoten bagged a lights-to-flag victory in the sole SRCC Sports 2000 Championship race in his Gunn TS11.

Racing resumes at Castle Combe on August 11-12 with the BRSCC Caterham Race Weekend.