Gordon Shedden has won an exciting race two by 0.040s from Andy Priaulx.
The Scotsman had come under heavy attack coming into clearways as they passed a backmarker. The two made contact and then ran side by side over the line.
The race had looked to be a certain Plato win after he started on pole and pulled out a big lead within a few laps. The BMR VW CC driver never usually makes mistakes and the BMR cars have been very reliable but a puncture going into paddock hill bend sent the former champion off the track and out of the race.
Behind Shedden and Priaulx were fighting hard for what turned out to be the lead of the race after Plato’s demise. Behind them Turkington was also in the hunt and was promoted to the podium and independent win in his BMR VW, benefiting from his team mate’s misfortune. Collard and Smith who had started fourth and sixth respectively fell down the order quite quickly as the race progressed.
Adam Morgan made the most impressive progress of the race, starting ninth, he passed both Andrew Jordan’s MG and Tom Ingram’s Speedworks Toyota. With Smith and Collard also dropping down the order he was fourth by the end of the race. Despite losing out to Morgan, Andrew Jordan had a better race this time in his Triple Eight MG and took fifth place, just ahead of Tom Ingram in sixth. Sam Tordoff had a better race too although seventh isn’t where he wants to be. Eighth was Matt Neal who was just off team mate Shedden’s pace but couldn’t find his way up the field. Ninth was Jack Goff, dropping three places from his grid slot. Tenth was Rob Austin after a race long battle with team mate Hunter Abbott. Abbott had the upper hand for much of the race but as both of them came to pass Dave Newsham, Austin took the advantage and moved ahead. It turned out that this had been a battle for race three pole, as when the grid was drawn, tenth was pulled out in the live draw by none other than Austin himself! One position difference moves poor Hunter Abbott to an eleventh place start instead of pole!
Behind Abbott was the fading Aron Smith who was being kept busy by Aiden Moffat. The Scottish Laser Tools racing driver looking much more comfortable in the race with a year of BTCC behind him. Josh Cook continued a points scoring debut weekend with fourteenth just ahead of team mate Newsham who had been running higher up the field before late race problems. Collard was sixteenth out of the points.
Infiniti Support our Paras racing took their first ever finish with twentieth for Derek Palmer. The team hope to have both cars out for the next rounds at Donington. Welch Motorsport missed race 1 due to issues with Andy Wilmot’s car and have had to withdraw.
Race three could be very interesting with Austin on Pole just in front of Goff and some other quicker drivers further down the field, most notably Collard in sixteenth and Plato who will start from close to the rear of the grid.
Race three gets underway at 17:12pm
Full results are available as always from TSL Timing. By Marc Waller
