Christie gets on bike for world title defence

John and seven others, Jim and Trevor Brennan, Roy Brown, Mark Davidson, Paul Magee, Michael McCambridge and Jonny McCoy, have formed a charity cycle team to raise money for Action Cancer by cycling the 300 mile journey across England from the ferry terminal at Liverpool to the race track at Ipswich.

Defending Champion Christie leads a strong group of qualifiers from the Northern Ireland Series at the World Championships, which also includes 2012 World Champion Glenn Bell, 2005 winner Keith Martin, Stewart Doak, Mark Heatrick, Adam Maxwell and newly crowned Northern Ireland Champion Andrew Murray. One spot in the big race still remains up for grabs via the support races on Saturday evening and a number of Northern Ireland drivers are booked in for this Wildcard event, including Broughshane’s Bill McCurdy and Mervyn Crawford from Kells.

Meanwhile Broughshane GP2 racer Jason Clyde continued his recent fine form with a heat and final double at Nutts Corner Raceway on June 21. Cullybackey’s Darryl Reid took victory in the opening Group Two Lightning Rod event before Clyde moved his Vauxhall Astra into top gear to rake up successes in both the second heat and the Wm. Moody & Son Car Sales sponsored final.

Championship races for both the F2 Stock Cars and Stock Rods provided the centre piece of the racing at Nutts Corner. England’s Steve Gooch proved unstoppable in the Stock Rod division, the Essex based driver capturing both the European and Irish Open titles over the weekend. The spoils were shared however between the mainland visitors and the locals in the F2 Stock Car section. Irish Champion Christopher Kincaid from Antrim added the Irish Open title to his growing list of honours on June 21, before Scotland’s Chris Burgoyne captured the F2 Nationals title on June 22. An excellent weekend of F2 action was concluded by a victory for Antrim’s Conor Hughes in the George Fegan Tyres Perpetual Cup event. Oval race action resumes at Ballymena Raceway over the weekend of July 18/19 where the feature event is the SHP Engineering sponsored Irish Masters for the National Hot Rods. If you would like to support the 962 team’s fundraising effort donations can be made via the link www.justgiving.com/962 or by texting NINE62 and your amount to 70070.