Sports 2000 is one of the UK's fastest sports car series, racing open cockpit, enclosed wheel cars built by a variety of racing car manufacturers, powered by either Ford two litre Pinto or Duratec engines, on many of the well-known circuits across the UK.

On Saturday 28th June the third round of the championship was held at picturesque Oulton Park in Cheshire and involved a very early start and a long drive ahead of two championship races on the same day for 17 year-old Michael Gibbins from Whyteleafe.

Michael has raced karts between the ages of 8 and 15, moving on to car racing at 16, becoming the youngest ever competitor and race winner in the Sports 2000 series last year.

Early morning qualifying, in what was now heavy rain, started well, with Michael holding the fastest pinto engined lap until mid-session, when mechanical gremlins struck. Michael was forced to pull over to the side of the track and sit the second half of the session out with a broken exhaust manifold, only to watch two cars from a differing class go faster, dropping Michael from overall pinto engined pole to class pole position.

After a frantic two hours of emergency repairs, Michael made the collecting paddock for race one with only minutes to spare. The weather remained wet, and all drivers elected to start on wet weather tyres. Fortunately, the temporary repairs lasted, allowing Michael to be the first pinto engined car home, setting the fastest lap in the process.

The weather dried up for the second race, but further technical problems conspired to relegate Michael to finishing an eventual class second place behind last year’s championship winner. Although not quite the perfect result over the day, the first and second place finishes are the next best thing, particularly against a background of mechanical problems in qualifying.

Overall, Michael was both pleased and satisfied with the results on the day, which serve to extend his lead in the championship. He said: “After being forced to stop with mechanical difficulties half way though qualifying, and with the uncertainty of whether we would be able to sort the problem out ahead of the race, I am delighted to have made the starts, and with the results at the end of the day.”

The next round is at Donington Park on 12th and 13th July.