Jerome De Sadeleer won the opening race in this year’s Radical Challenge, as the belated season began at Oulton Park last Saturday.
The 360 Racing trio of De Sadeleer, Mark Richards and Jason Rishover dominated qualifying, to take the top three places on the grid for race one.
“It felt really good, but in testing I hadn’t been sure. But after I got a few good laps I felt I was back, got into a flow and felt that the set up we worked so hard on last year really worked well,” said poleman De Sadeleer.
Richards was only 0.58 secs off the pole time, “I had set my best lap early on and every quick lap I found later, I went and caught someone,” Richards added.
Rishover felt he could have gone quicker too, “I was compromised on my quickest lap. But all the testing I had done really paid off, with a good rhythm early on,” he said.
There was a light sprinkling of rain just before the first of the two 50 minute races.
As the lights went out De Sadeleer led through Old Hall from Rishover, but Marcus Clutton had slipped ahead of Richards for third. “I had tried the outside line, but Marcus got up my inside,” he explained.
As they came over Hilltop Rishover was under pressure and was down to fourth as they exited Knickerbrook. “I missed the apex as I turned in,” he admitted.
De Sadeleer was out in front from Clutton, with Rishover under pressure from Richards and Shane Stoney, but on the fourth lap Richards’s race was over. “The fuel pump had gone at the Shell Hairpin,” he explained.
Rishover was trying to rechallenge Constable for third, but had taken Stoney with him. He made a fantastic move into Knickerbrook to snatch third place, but it didn’t last long. “I went and spun it at Old Hall,” he admitted after dropping to seventh.
As the pitstop window approached, the safety car appeared too, but both De Sadeleer and Clutton had gone by before the board was displayed, forcing them to stop a lap later.
De Sadeleer was left chasing Stoney for the lead, but was back in front on the 23rd lap when his rival ran wide and spun at Brittens chicane.
De Sadeleer managed to increase his lead to just over two seconds from Clutton at the flag, “we had been so unlucky with the safety car, so had to work hard and could continue pressing with such a good set up,” he said.
Although Rishover retained fourth on the road in the second half, a track limit penalty left him classified fifth.
