Last weekend, Jo Polley headed to Oulton Park with the rest of the Eurotech team for the latest rounds of the Mini Challenge JCW championship.
Jeff Smith sadly still isn’t racing after his big BTCC crash at Croft but Brett was looking to seal the championship win after a great season with a round still to go! Jo had her best result of the season at the Oulton Park Mini festival round last year and was hoping to do the same again.
The weather turned out to be just the same as last year and qualifying was damp to wet. Jo put in her best qualifying performance of the year to take seventeenth, which is even more impressive when you learn she did it on slicks on wet track! She may well have been even higher if she had time to change to wets. Meanwhile Brett was in sixth, not as close to the front as he’s used to but he just needed enough points to secure his championship.
Both Jo and Brett made good starts as the first race got underway, once again on a damp track. Brett rapidly cut through the field up to second. Jo was also making progress once again looking strong at the meeting she shone at last season. As the race entered the closing stages there was a big pile up at the back of the circuit. Jo and Brett were not affected but the red flags came out.
Once the results were established, Jo found herself in eleventh place, equalling her best result since moving to the JCW class. Brett was second and that was enough to seal the championship!
There were several stoppages over the shower affected day and so race two was shortened to only be over ten laps. Race two’s reverse grid draw saw Brett start in third. He got into a fight with Will Neal which would last for much of the shortened race distance. Meanwhile Jo found herself racing with Rebecca Jackson, the only other female driver in the JCWs this weekend.
Brett’s race with Will put them out of touch of a podium but Brett stayed ahead giving him fourth. Jo Meanwhile took thirteenth, her best set of results of the 2017 season.
Jo was pleased with how everything had gone;
“Wow what a day, action packed races, plenty of sideways slick running in the damp conditions and loads of emotions, sorry to see some big crashes – hope everyone is okay! Best results of the season for me eleventh and Thirteenth plus Brett won the Championship so a great day for the team!”
The team have one last meeting of the JCW championship supporting British GT at Donington Park on the 23rd and 24th September. Both Jo and Brett will want to end their great 2017 season on a high. By Marc Waller
