STEPHEN Irvine made his racing comeback at Anglesey Race Circuit and showed that, despite a year’s absence from the race scene, he has lost none of his winning pace.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for the Worsthorne driver as, despite putting in a class winning performance on Saturday, he felt there was more to come from both him and his new MG ZR160 in Sunday’s races.

Irvine said: “It was like driving a shopping trolley. If I pushed too hard the back end would begin to go round.

“The weather didn’t help, the wind was horrendous, I’d never driven in conditions like it.”

Sunday didn’t bring any weather respite so Irvine hatched a plan to improve the car’s handling, saying: “I increased the front tyre pressures and reduced those on the rear, then to provide more ballast over the back wheels I put more fuel in the tank.

“It worked a treat!”

With renewed confidence in the car, Irvine went even quicker on Sunday to score a double sprint victory in his 2011 MGCC Luffield Cars Speed Championship campaign, getting within a second of the track record in the process.

“It’s been a good weekend with the bonus of winning trophies for both days,” he said.

Also competing at Anglesey was Gary Dawes, who took the wheel of the Minisport prepared BMW Mini Cooper he usually co-drives his brother Ian in on the rally stages.

Dawes, who is also from Worsthorne, finished second in his class.