Derek Tohill (Dublin) wound up his season competing in the final round of the 2011 MSA British Rallycross Championship.  The British Championship made a welcome return to Croft circuit near Darlington in the North of England.  Rallycross had been sidelined at this venue for the past couple of years due to restrictions with the circuits use.

For this event Tohill had to leave his European spec Ford Fiesta MK.7 at home due to some technical problems after the final race of the European Rallycross Championship in Czech Republic.  The Irishman did a deal at the very last moment to drive Andy Scotts RX150 Rage Buggy.  These lightweight Buggies are rear wheel drive and come with a 954cc Honda Fireblade engine with a sequential short shift gearbox.

Derek felt comfortable in the motorcycle engined buggy straight away

The Irishman traveled throught the night to get to Croft and on Saturday morning he jumped in and made himself aware of his new office for the day.  It was a wet first run and not knowing how the wipers worked wasn’t ideal!  In any case the Irishman pushed on and kept the Buggy on the island, just!

The 2 qualification heats then began and the Irishman had some close battles with newly crowned2011  British RX 150 Champion Ollie O’Donovan.   Derek & Ollie took a win a piece in slippery conditions, the Final would see the pair start on the front row alongside each other.

Derek & Ollie O'Donovan getting to know each other! Photo Courtesy of Leigh Hickey

As the lights turned green, Ollie had the motorbike engined clutches mastered  and got a clean get away off the line.  Derek wasn’t far behind and the pair swaped positions furiously for the first few laps.  Ollie wasn’t going to make things easy but Derek knew Ollie was a hard nut and the pair fought hard & close on a few occasions.   On lap 3 Derek wrestled the lead again from Ollie and managed to make  a small gap, he drove hard over the final 2 laps and eventually took the chequered flag in 1st position.  This was Derek’s first experience of the RX150 buggy and the 2010 European Rallycross Champion thouroughly enjoyed the close competition.

Derek drove Andy Scotts RX150 to an A Final victory at Croft

After the final round of the British Championship the end of season Rallycross Grand Prix took place.  Derek took the Heat 1 win and the other 2 Heats were won by Ollie.  The front of the A final was made up of Ollie, Derek & 2010 RX150 Champion Leo Forster.  As the A final started there was close contact between Ollie & Leo, this meant Derek had to move off his normal racing line which allowed Kevin Feeney to make a strong move up the inide of  the Teng Tools backed Irishman.  Tohill reacted to Feeneys move and made contact with Forster.  Tohill, Feeney & Forster all lost time together and the rest of the field escaped.  Derek fought back and managed to climb back up to 3rd overall.  Ollie taking the win this time ahead of Jake Harris & Tohill.

Steer from the rear...

So two podium finishes which included an overall victory and third place is how the Irishmans weekend ended in an eventful RX150 debut!   The Irishman commented; “It was a fantastic opportuinity to sample these fast and furious machines, I expected them to be difficult to drive and thought it would be all about lap times.  It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to see the racing was hard & aggresive, this is just the kind of environment I’m used to competing in and i’d love to give it a go again.  The RX Racing Team headed by Ollie O’Donovan & Willie Woods is a professionally run outfit with good support and a friendly atmosphere.  It’s an ideal machine to keep me on my toes throughout the Winter, watch this space…

Derek enjoyed the slippery conditions in the high reving RWD buggy

The victory at Croft driving the RX150 Rage Buggy was tohill’s third win in the MSA British Rallycross Championship in 2011.  The Tractive Transmisions supported driver won the opening round of the British Championship at Lydden Hill, Kent in the Supernational category driving his Ford Fiesta MK.7.  Tohill then turned to driving his newly built Peugeot 106 in the Hot Hatch category for round 3 at Mondello Park.  Again the Irishman took victory in the ultra competitive class where the Irishman started his career in Rallycross.   This meant Tohill won every round of the MSA British Championship he entered in 2011 but in 3 different classes!!!  A nice triple victory ending to a tough season which also resulted in 3rd overall in the FIA European Rallycross Championship in TouringCars.

Derek drove his Fiesta to victory at Rd.1 of the 2011 British Championship