Victory for Mathers at Anglesey bodes well for season finale

The Subaru Pro-R Time Attack team rolled into the picturesque Anglesey circuit last weekend after a mixed bag of luck from their previous outing at Cadwell Park. Despite having recorded an impressive victory there, pilot Jon Mathers and the team from Cross Roads Garage in Tredington also suffered a painful set-back with a minor off, although Mathers had already set the fastest Lap time 2nd lap out.

In the intervening period, the Warwickshire-based team had been working hard to restore the Sti hatchback to its former glory, with the supporting cast of TDRacing and ABW literally having to strip and repair the entire front end in readiness for their assault on the notoriously challenging Welsh circuit.

With so much to do, the car was only just ready on the Friday preceding the race, so with literally hours to spare, the team battled the bank holiday traffic to shake the car back down during the pre-event test day on Saturday morning. Mathers was keen to find the form and set-up that had proved to be so effective at Cadwell Park just weeks before, but with the fickle coastal climate lowering track temperatures and adding rain into the mix, the Cross Roads team wisely erred on the side of caution with a full wet-set up, resulting in some promising times.

As race day dawned on the Sunday, a drastic change in the weather saw the team changing the set-up to suit the grippier conditions, stiffening the Eibach roll bar up front and reducing the settings at the rear to allow the car to really bite into the turns. Thanks to a malfunction in the timing equipment during the warm-up session, the Pro R Subaru team had no idea where they were, speed wise, adding to the jeopardy as the competitors moved into the first practise session.

Despite an impressive drive, Mathers had to settle for a close second in this session, behind the epically quick WTC Seat of Gerry Atkinson. However, rather than making any changes in search of those elusive hundredths of a second, Mathers sagely chose to keep the set-up exactly as it was and let the car come to him as the track temperature slowly began to creep under the ever improving weather.

When qualifying started in earnest, it was clear to see that the new engine powering Marc Kemp’s Evo had obviously been money well spent. With an abundance of power, coupled with a superb drive from Kemp, Mathers had to fight hard to claim the narrowest of victories, by a mere tenth of a second.

Trying to keep his Pirelli tyres in their ‘sweet spot’, Mathers was first out of the traps in the final and in his usual trademark clipped style, dispensed one quick out lap and one flyer to post the fastest time in the class of 1.17.692, pushing the hard-charging Kemp into second, but only by a slim margin of .259.

With less than a month to go until the final round at Snetterton on the 25th of September, Mather’s 25 point lead looks strong, but by no means unassailable. ‘We’re taking nothing for granted as we go into the final,’ he noted. The ‘200’ layout of that circuit favours the Mitsubishis normally, so we’ve really got to up our game as a team, and I really have to focus as a driver to get the best times there. If we can maintain our perfect reliability record, and everything else falls our way, we’re hopeful, put it that way!’

For more information, visit pro-r.co.uk.