Black sets the pace in Park festival

Arnie Black, of Holywood (Co Down), was the fastest driver in action over the weekend in the Irish Motor Racing Club/Leinster Motor Club annual Festival of Speed in Dublin's Phoenix Park.

Driving his Irish-built Crossle sports car, based on a design from the 1960s, he won the Crossle race each day and set the fastest lap each time, averaging 93.33 mph for the 1.73 mile Oldtown circuit on Saturday and more than 92 mph yesterday.

In Saturday's quickest race of the long programme, he almost caught the Formula Ford Zetecwinning Van Diemen of Philip Kehoe, who had started 10 seconds earlier, but was slowed by a problem on his last lap and had to content himself with victory in the Crossle section.

Ed O'Connor from Westmeath was the most successful driver of the weekend, with three wins in his Renault Clio. He won the Dunlop Touring car race on both days, and also the Challenge race which closed the packed programme yesterday. His main opposition came from the Astra of Gordon Kellett and Mark Turley's Civic, but although these two battled fiercely with each other, they were never realistically able to challenge the defending Dunlop champion, who won more or less as he pleased each time.

On Saturday, Kellett stayed ahead of his Honda rival, while yesterday, he held Turley at bay for the opening laps, but then had to give way and settle for third place.

Clive Pratt and Mervyn Miller duelled each time for top place in the Uno race, and although Miller led for a while on both days, it was the Carlow driver who was first across the line each time, leaving him as one of the five drivers who scored weekend doubles.

Brian Hearty yesterday repeated his Saturday Formula Vee victory, pulling out a huge lead as a hectic battle went on for second place. After eight laps of place changing, Brian Melia finally took runnerup spot ahead of fellow Galway driver Frank Byrnes.

A large collection of pre-war sports cars revived memories of the Irish Grands Prix which were run in Phoenix Park from 1929 to 1931, and Martin Stretton drove his BMW sports car to double success in the Frazer Nash races. Yesterday, he had his hands full to get ahead of the older AC-GN of Jon Giles, but he eventually managed it, only for the race to be cut short because of an accident to Mark Walker, who was fortunate to suffer only minor shoulder injuries when his 76-year-old "Thunderbug" clipped a grass bank leaving Mountjoy corner and turned over.

In the races for Irish Historic cars, Ed Cassidy and Bertie Carruthers shared the honours, while other race winners included Bruce Allison and John Whelan among the Strikers, Mark Turley and Joey Freeburn in the Italian Saloons, and Pauraic Owens and Paul Heavey in the Formula Vee class.