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Sunday, 18 September 2011 14:00 |
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Race one was all about the rising stars of the British Touring Car Championship.
Reigning champion, Silverline Chevrolet's Jason Plato, took a pole-to-flag victory whilst behind him it was Paul O'Neill of Gomobileuk.com tech-speed and Dynojet's Frank Wrathall who both tasted podium champagne. The race may have started with 26 cars but plenty of on-track action saw Jackson, Jordan, Newsham, Collard and Welch all fail to finish.
Martin Byford and Tom Onslow-Cole both also finished far behind following car trouble - in fact Byford completed almost a lap of the 1.94 mile track with the bonnet of his Volkswagen Golf wide open!
With fierce battles up and down the field, thousands of spectators that had turned out to watch the action had a challenge deciding where to look next. Of particular interest was the scrap for third place between the Honda Civics of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden and eventual victor, Frank Wrathall. Nick Foster showed some great race pace to eventually split the Hondas to the obvious delight of his WSR team.
Despite a spin early on Rob Austin still enjoyed some points finishing in seventh ahead of Special Tuning Racing's Tom Boardman. Tom drove a mighty race from 23rd following his six-place grid drop for events at Knockhill.
After starting strongly James Nash ended on the losing side of a few spirited battles to finish 9th and BTCC new recruit, Michael Caine round out the top ten which should give some comfort to the Airwaves Racing team after seeing Mat Jackson retire for a fourth time.
The former championship leader has dropped to fourth with Matt Neal taking the lead ahead of team-mate Shedden. Jason Plato is third but with the Chevrolet's looking strong can he climb higher? By Samantha Wilcox, Photo by Marc Waller
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