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JHS

Btcc '11

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I don't know who Jeff Smith is, but he's a hero. What a save! Guy should come run dirt sprint cars...

Shedden really working the moaner on this one. A guy who could just sit back after nearly missing this race and bring the car home going for it; a guy who calls himself a "champion" just sitting there moaning that he doesn't have a turbo. Glad Shedden got it, woke Plato up after a lot of riding around. :P

Nice recovery by Nash, too.

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I suspect, to be serious about Plato for a moment, that his car's just not working in clean air, and that his motivation's a lot lower (especially considering his own comments) with his struggles to overtake. There seems to be a big advantage of being out front today and I guess that's logical. Easier to defend than attack.

Not exactly what I hoped for in race three in terms of action, but glad BTCC's back.

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Good stuff, great to have some real racing back once again. All three races were entertaining, but maybe not classics. I think that's to be expected from the first round though as everyone finds their feet and sorts their cars out. I also don't think Brands Hatch Indy really develops that exciting racing that much anyway.

Plato did well, I think really in a way he was gifted the first race win to some extent with MacDowall using Neal as a brake for the second corner. I think he really needs to calm down or something. If he stopped crashing into everyone all the time, he'd make a handy little touring car driver. But hey, what can you expect from a guy who's got Plato as his team mate? :P

Pleased for Honda racing. They had a rough weekend. Would have liked to see Shedden win a race, but Neal did well to recover from his bad start to the day.

Feel sorry for Andy Jordan. Two front row starts and only 5 points taken from the weekend really through no fault of his own. A puncture is a puncture, it can hit anyone, so quite impressive that he said it was probably his fault in the third race.

I was happy to see O'Neill up there too. I thought he might be able to close the gap in the late stages of the last race if Neal and Jackson's tyres went off, but he admitted on the grid beforehand that he has a different driving style to Plato and MacDowall (perhaps not bouncing off other cars at every given opportunity ;)) so I guess it'll be a couple of rounds before they get the best out of that car. Great to see his reaction as ever too. I guess it'd be easy to mock and say he's just being a drama queen, but you can tell from his emotions how much it really means to him. That's a guy who loves his racing.

Real baptism of fire for the NGTC cars. Didn't expect them to be winning races straight away, but didn't expect them to be so unreliable either. Rob Austin Racing have posted pictures of the finished Audi A4 on their facebook page, so it does exist, and it seems as if they are on track for two cars out at Donington in two weeks.

I'll be going to Donington (first time at BTCC for two years!) so I'll try to take some pictures and do a race report for anyone who is interested. Glad you got to see some of the action Eric, and surprised that the BTCC has a growing interest (even if it is very, very small) over there in America. The series may not have many manufacturer entries, but with more and more sponsors becoming involved with the sport, rapidly increasing numbers of people present at tracks and increasing television time, the BTCC really is in a great place currently.

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Turns out F1 has a bit of a following at my uni, too. If there's a group of people getting up early with me to watch, and if we can have a good time, I'm more than game to get back into the sport for social reasons. I think posting on forums and following the drivers too closely killed it for me. Having some friends to get rowdy with at 3 AM could well revive it. ;)

But that's off-topic anyway. Took a look at the standings and didn't realize James Nash was all the way up to P3. He quietly had a really good weekend, and I wish ITV would have shown his drive through the field in the final race after butchering his start. I imagine it could have been fun to see overtaking, rather than "they might maybe possibly overtake soon." But me whining about TV production's nothing new, and it's water under the bridge at this point.

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I don't think it was Nash's fault about the start of the last race, more so Jackson coming through and sideswiping him off the track.

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I don't think it was Nash's fault about the start of the last race, more so Jackson coming through and sideswiping him off the track.

Tim Harvey said that, too, and at that moment I tried to see it that way, but I just couldn't. It looked to me that Nash cut Jackson off, unaware that Jackson might be moving forward on the start (God forbid ;)). Incidental contact, really, so it's not like it was anyone's "fault," but I think Nash made the worse move than Jackson. I guess I'd have to look at it again to see if Jackson could have moved over, but at the end of the day, Nash had every right to try to block him out and Jackson had every right to keep going forward, so perhaps it cancels out, only leaving the fact Nash made the move first and Jackson had to respond.

But all in all, it was meaningless for the result for both drivers, so I think I'm making a lot out of a little here. :P

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Hmm, although the Brands Hatch start line is a strange one. Get too much wheel spin and the cars with end up moving down the hill, which I guess -could- have happened in that instance.

Anyway, it's good that there are some people interested in F1 going to your uni Eric, although I can't imagine they'll be so keen to get up early to watch an obscure series from the United Britainland. ;)

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Hmm, although the Brands Hatch start line is a strange one. Get too much wheel spin and the cars with end up moving down the hill, which I guess -could- have happened in that instance.

Anyway, it's good that there are some people interested in F1 going to your uni Eric, although I can't imagine they'll be so keen to get up early to watch an obscure series from the United Britainland. ;)

And, to be fair, I have some bias. Not a big Nash guy, but I do like Jackson (if I were to make a signature of my favorite BTCC guys, it would, coincidentally, be the same three guys as yours. Funny how that is).

Well, there are students from over 125 different nations going to my uni next year...I suspect that one of those nations might possibly be the U.K., as exotic of a place as that is. ;)

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Thorney to run Insignias:

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Another new model is set to enter the British Touring Car Championship after Thorney Motorsport announced it will run two Vauxhall Insignias in the series later this season. Thorney, which has extensive experience running tin-tops in British club events, is currently building the NGTC cars and hopes to run them at the Brands Hatch or Silverstone rounds in October.

Team boss John Thorne will drive one car, while the team's Dunlop Production Touring Car Trophy driver Joe Girling could fill the second seat.

The team is considering using the Swindon-developed TOCA engine, but has not ruled out developing a unit itself.

Thorne said: "It's been a dream of mine for many years to run in the BTCC. We've come close in the last two years and the new NGTC regulations are just too good to ignore.

"As a team we always built our own cars and the new regs allow both the budget to be kept reasonable as well as allow some engineering flair that we can thrive on."

Thorne believes that, despite its extra size compared to Vauxhall's Vectra and Astra models, the Insignia can be a good base for a BTCC racer.

"Commercially our core business is performance upgrades for Vauxhalls and BMWs so we have to run one of those for obvious reasons," he said.

"The Insignia has an excellent drag coefficient, which is going to be very useful for us. No bulbous wheel arch extensions means much better aerodynamics and we think will give a very Super Touring look to the car.

"TOCA want bigger cars in the championship and frankly we agree with them."

Thorne also confirmed he wants to give the team time to develop the car before it appears in the BTCC.

"We aren't going to rush it," he said. "I've got first hand experience of rushing a car to the grid when it wasn't fully developed and it's no fun and you've no idea how it will compete. I'm not doing that again."

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Ah, the glorious return of the Buick Regal to auto racing! ;)

Glad Thorney are getting the Insignia out there. They've been working on that for a while now, and I figured it was just dead. I'm glad teams are exercising their NGTC options, even if that's not going to be the most competitive route this season.

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Grid for race one tomorrow. I'll be there and will try to get some photos as promised.

1. Matt Neal Honda 1m10.129s

2. Gordon Shedden Honda 1m10.172s + 0.043s

3. James Nash Triple 8 Vauxhall 1m10.477s + 0.348s

4. Andrew Jordan Eurotech Vauxhall 1m10.556s + 0.427s

5. Tom Chilton Arena Ford 1m10.737s + 0.608s

6. Jeff Smith Eurotech Vauxhall 1m11.074s + 0.945s

7. Mat Jackson Motorbase Ford 1m11.309s + 1.180s

8. Jason Plato Chevrolet 1m11.362s + 1.233s

9. Alex MacDowall Chevrolet 1m11.425s + 1.296s

10. Rob Collard WSR BMW 1m11.440s + 1.311s

11. Paul O'Neill Tech-Speed Chevrolet 1m11.540s + 1.411s

12. Tom Boardman Special Tuning SEAT 1m11.572s + 1.443s

13. Tony Gilham Triple 8 Vauxhall 1m11.656s + 1.527s

14. Andy Neate Arena Ford 1m11.766s + 1.637s

15. Liam Griffin Motorbase Ford 1m11.799s + 1.670s

16. Tom Onslow-Cole AmD Volkswagen 1m12.052s + 1.923s

17. Nick Foster WSR BMW 1m12.167s + 2.038s

18. John George Tech-Speed Chevrolet 1m12.289s + 2.160s

19. Dave Newsham Geoff Steel BMW 1m12.352s + 2.223s

20. Frank Wrathall Dynojet Toyota 1m12.429s + 2.300s

21. Rob Austin Austin Audi 1m13.283s + 3.154s

22. Chris James ES Chevrolet 1m14.787s + 4.658s

23. Tony Hughes Speedworks Toyota 1m15.125s + 4.996s

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I love the fact Plato doesn't have a turbo. Keeping it interesting; I think Honda might make up for all their troubles at Brands tomorrow.

Vauxhall's hauling this weekend.

Really interesting lineup; will definitely try to watch races two and three. Enjoy the races, James.

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Yep, you're right about Vauxhall, 3 of the 4 inside the top 6. Really surprised about Jeff Smith though, he could be one to watch. Nash is on a role too, and I'm sure Jordan will be determinded to make up for the two punctures he got at Brands.

Great to see the Audi finally make an appearance too. Not bad times considering everything.

Thanks Eric, I will. I hope you enjoy the race if you get to see them too.

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Just in time for lap 4 of race three...trying to figure out how everyone got where they are. Bizarre.

Not enough defense from MacDowall; Jackson takes the lead on lap 5 and now it's Neal's turn...

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Jackson's flying out there with that turbo. Great to have the different engines in the series this year; going to keep it really interesting.

Neate and Nash make contact, poor move by Neate to try to block a guy who was already there...lucky he didn't full-on lose it. Nash is on a mission here; doubt there's time to catch up, but...

(If you want to watch, it's LIVE now here).

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Hell of a weekend for Gordon, eh?

Nash past Neal now; surprised at how slow Neal's been going. I thought for sure he'd catch MacDowall, but it looks like Nash is the hot ticket today with that Vectra.

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Nooooo....John George goes for a spin.

Jordan around the outside by MacDowall! POWER! Those Vectras are incredible and it's a great weekend for Jordan and his teammate Jeff Smith, too.

MacDowall's got Nash right there, too, and he's going to be totally defenseless here...great stuff.

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Matt Neal MOVE OF THE RACE! Split's Smith and the lapped Wrathall to cut to the inside into the corner! Brilliant, and surprisingly for Neal, clean!

Nash gets ahead of MacDowall, two Vauxhalls behind Jackson, but a long way out. Got to really get after it. Great drive by Nash so far, and a great race. I hope you recorded this one James, because there's no way you can be catching everything going on!

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Great stuff mid-pack! Plato got greedy and tried to get by Gilham but they just played bumper cars instead. You cannot get frustrated and Plato did, lost his cool, and lost his point.

Smith, Neal, and Gilham's been fun to watch and the lapped Wrathall's making it really wild here.

Can someone on YouTube please AutoTune Ben Edwards? That would be incredible...

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O'Neill spears Collard! They're really taking the gloves off in these last few laps! Great race so far!

Plato on Neal, BOARDMAN DEAD STOP ON THE TRACK! Plato gets Neal, oh my goodness this is great.

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Two Vauxhalls flanking a Ford! Gilham hits Neate, Neate's out, Gilham's damaged! Jackson wins! Gilham goes off.

1. Jackson

2. Jordan

3. Nash

4. MacDowall

5. Smith

6. Plato

7. Neal

8. O'Neill

9. Griffin

10. Foster

Wild, wild race. Brilliant! I can't imagine the fun James must have had today...wow!

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I had a great day thanks Eric, glorious weather and some fantastic racing! The pit lane walkabout was as fantastic as ever, managed to get 14 autographs! Took quite a few photos, so I'll get them uploaded and sorted out as soon as I can.

The infield of Donington is still quite a mess, quite a big area that is basically wasteland and really, the facilities have not got any better in regards to toilets and things. But hey, I went there to watch some motor racing and I saw some pretty fantastic action.

Star (or should that be stars?) of the day for me are easily RML for getting Plato's car sorted for race three after this big accident in race two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub0Srd-NeeU&feature=channel_video_title

Two and a bit hours later, and you wouldn't know looking at the car that he'd suffered such a big crash. Only in motorsport I guess.

Anyway, I'll get to work on my race report and sorting out the photos. I'll aim to have it online tomorrow for anyone who is interested in reading. :)

And yes, thankfully I did remember to record the racing before we left, I'll catch up tomorrow to make sure my notes tally. Just caught up on what happened in F1.

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I missed Plato's wreck...wow! Had I known I would have been immensely impressed with how they did in race three.

Glad you had a good one, James. Looking forward to the report and photos.

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Question....if its the BRITISH Touring Car Championship, why are there VW's, Audi's and Chevs racing? Do they manufacture in the UK? Or is that rule gone and dusted in the BTCC?

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I had a great day thanks Eric, glorious weather and some fantastic racing! The pit lane walkabout was as fantastic as ever, managed to get 14 autographs! Took quite a few photos, so I'll get them uploaded and sorted out as soon as I can.

The infield of Donington is still quite a mess, quite a big area that is basically wasteland and really, the facilities have not got any better in regards to toilets and things. But hey, I went there to watch some motor racing and I saw some pretty fantastic action.

Star (or should that be stars?) of the day for me are easily RML for getting Plato's car sorted for race three after this big accident in race two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub0Srd-NeeU&feature=channel_video_title

Two and a bit hours later, and you wouldn't know looking at the car that he'd suffered such a big crash. Only in motorsport I guess.

Anyway, I'll get to work on my race report and sorting out the photos. I'll aim to have it online tomorrow for anyone who is interested in reading. :)

And yes, thankfully I did remember to record the racing before we left, I'll catch up tomorrow to make sure my notes tally. Just caught up on what happened in F1.

Hey, this gives me an idea for a thread....stay tooned...

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