Wigan racer Tony Lynch has vowed to bounce back from a weekend to forget at Pembrey after mechanical woes hampered his challenge in the sixth round of the MSA British Rallycross Championship in association with the Shannon Group.

Westhoughton-based Tony made the trip to South Wales seeking to replicate the kind of form that had seen him secure a stunning victory at the wheel of his Lucas Oil Team Geriatric MINI Cooper S during the previous double-header at Mondello Park.

That win had been Tony’s first of the season in the Super National class, but came before a gearbox failure that then hit his hopes in the second event of the weekend in Ireland.

A race to get the racing ’box repaired for Pembrey ended with the team refitting the unit just in time for the MINI to be loaded onto the trailer for the journey south - although it meant that the team was unable to check everything was well until practice.

It soon became apparent that an issue existed with third gear, with the team entering into discussions with its gearbox supplier to determine whether the problem could be managed at the circuit.

While the decision was taken to continue, Tony’s hopes of success came to a premature end when the issue proved to be terminal - forcing him to withdraw from the event before the qualifying heats were complete.

The team will now seek to reolve the gearbox issue in time for the seventh event of the season at Lydden Hill in late August.

Anyone who knows me will know I’m not someone who gets lost for words often, but I really was speechless when it came to the weekend,” he said. "We’d worked hard to get the close ratio ’box repaired and back in the car but we didn’t have time to do any kind of shakedown test before we went into the weekend.

"In practice, we had a problem where the car was popping out of third gear and we spoke to our gearbox people to see if it was something we could manage in order to pick up the points. We gave it a go, but sadly the casing cracked and that was it - game over.

“It’s obviously hugely disappointing for me and the whole team as we’d worked hard to get the car repaired after a bruising second event in Ireland and it’s unfortunate that we’ve now had two below par results after our win in round five. However, these kind of problems are the things you have to deal with when you are developing a car and we’ll make sure there is no repeat when we go to Lydden Hill next month.”

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