Adam Morgan wins race one at Thruxton as it finishes in chaos.

Three wide on lap one (Photo by Marc Waller)

Three wide on lap one (Photo by Marc Waller)Adam Morgan has won a dramatic first race at Thruxton which was shortened after a big shunt between several front running contenders.

At the start pole sitter Ingram made a good start initially but he soon found Aiden Moffat and Matt Neal alongside. As the three of them headed round together, Ingram and Moffat made contact and dropped down the order. This left Neal in the lead from Cook and Morgan with Moffat hanging onto fourth.

Morgan then passed Cook at the final chicane and set off after Neal. Cook’s MG was slowed by the battle letting several other cars through.

In the next few laps, Morgan started lining up to pass Neal and after a couple of aborted attempts he passed him into the first corner and started pulling away.

Moffat by now had recovered to third and he soon copied Morgan in first hounding and then passing Neal, also into the first corner.

Behind there were seven cars fighting for position with another big pack just behind that. It looked set to be a Mercedes one-two as both cars began to pull away.

But disaster struck for the young scot in his Laser Tools racing Mercedes as he suffered a puncture on lap ten and ran wide. Mat jackson’s Focus also got a puncture on the same lap with the flailing rubber smashing his bodywork, forcing him straight into the pits.

It was to be a puncture that bought the race to a halt.

Matt Neal’s Honda had developed a puncture going into lap twelve. He slowed to pull into the pitlane only to turn across Josh Cook who was unsighted on his inside. Cook’s and Neal’s cars bounced off each other straight into the path of Gordon Shedden, Jeff Smith and Jake Hill.

Shedden’s car ended up in the barriers and Hill’s Avensis had a sizable hit in the rear but he managed to continue circulating. Smith’s team mate Depper got past him into fourth as Smith recovered but the red flags then came out as Shedden’s car in particular was in a dangerous position This meant the results would be taken from the order on lap eleven.

So Morgan took his second win of the year and becomes the first repeat winner on 2016. Tom Ingram takes second and Andrew Jorden was awarded third, his first podium for Motorbase and his first since 2015.

Jeff Smith just missed out on a podium spot with team mate Depper behind in fifth, their best result since Smith took over the Eurotech team from the Jordan family.

Sixth and seventh were the JCT600 with Gardx duo of Rob Collard and Sam Tordoff, making up for their disappointing qualifying. Their team mate in the sister IHG hotels BMW, Jack Goff was eighth.

Dan Welch took ninth, his best result for some time in his Goodestone Racing Proton. The switch to a Swindon engine is really helping the Hampshire team and they will be thrilled to score a tp nine at their home track.

Tenth was Jake Hill although his RCIB Insurance Racing Toyota has some significant damage to fix for race two. His team mate Michael Epps was eleventh just ahead of Daniel Lloyd on his debut for Eurotech.

Matt Simpson scored points in his Speedworks run Honda Civic ahead of Rob Austin in the Handy Motorsport Avensis.

Morgan takes the lead (Photo by Marc Waller) Eurotech take their best finish yet in their current form (Photo by Marc Waller) Morgan celebrates being the seasons first double winner (Photo by Marc Waller) Tom Ingram celebrates second (Photo by Marc Waller) The top three on the podium (Photo by Marc Waller)

 

 

 

The final point was taken by Power Maxed racing’s Hunter Abbott in his Chevrolet Cruze. This was a good recovery after he had been left last on the opening lap.

Full results are on TSL timing 

With cars now littering the track officials were left with little choice but to cut the race short and the red flags were immediately waved by the Thruxton marshals.

With the race being officially classified at the end of lap 11 it left Morgan with a richly deserved win ahead of the recovering Ingram and Andrew Jordan’s Pirtek Racing Ford Focus, who had himself made steady progress up the order.

Jeff Smith maintained fourth, despite the incident, while team-mate Martin Depper scored a career best fifth place – handing Eurotech Racing an impressive double top five finish.

Rob Collard topped a BMW trio next in the order as he surged ahead of his WSR stablemates Sam Tordoff and Jack Goff to take sixth. Collard was disappointed to have qualified down in 18th but his performance and result in race one will have gone some way to making amends.  By Marc Waller

   

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