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BTC-Touring and Production combined Feature Race

The first feature race of the 2001 season saw the beginning of something new to the championship - rolling starts. Following two green flag laps of the short Indy circuit, the cars lined up two abreast as they entered the start finish straight, and remained largely in this formation right in to Paddock Bend, which inevitably a casualty. Not wanting to be outdone by her Techspeed team mate, Annie Templeton parked her 306, (perhaps not as spectacularly as Paul O'Neill managed in the sprint race), firmly in the gravel at the bottom of the hill. This brought out the safety car which stayed on the track until the end of lap 3. At the restart, both James Thompson and Steve Soper passed Phil Bennett's Astra, with Yvan Muller still leading the race. In the battle for class B supremacy, Roger Moen led from teammate, and sprint race winner, Simon Harrison, with Gavin Pyper in third. By lap 10, Phil Bennett was back on the trail of Steve Soper, and the pair entered the start-finish straight side by side. Soper managed to maintain his position around Paddock, but Bennett made the move stick through Surtees, putting him back up to 4th position. Lap 11 saw Production class Mitsubishi driver Andy Neate retire to the pits. By this point, both Simon Harrison and James Kaye had passed Roger Moen to take 1st and 2nd places respectively. The top three were followed by Pyper, Jackson, O'Neill and Howell.

Traffic on lap 14 helped James Thompson to close up on fellow Vauxhall driver Plato, and he proceeded to put Plato under pressure, before being the first to make his mandatory pit stop on lap 18. Muller pitted from the lead on lap 19, giving Plato an extra point for holding the race lead. Bennett also picked up the extra point when Plato made his stop. Lap 23 saw Muller make a second, unscheduled, visit to the pits, and unfortunately for him, proved to have terminal engine problems. Steve Soper was the last to stop to change his tyres, leaving it until the last lap of the pit-window. Whilst there was frantic changing of position in the Touring class during this period, things remained much the same amongst the Production runners.

Following the pit stops, Thompson emerged ahead of Plato, who was unable to pass the Egg Sport driver, despite battling valiantly. Thompson took the chequered flag exactly 0.5 seconds ahead of Plato, with Phil Bennett making it the second all Vauxhall podium of the day. They were followed home by Soper, Neal and Eaves respectively.

In the Production class, Simon Harrison held on to his lead until lap 48, when he lost a wheel as he came through Paddock Bend, and ended up in the gravel trap. This handed the lead to James Kaye, who brought his Honda Accord home ahead of Roger Moen and Mat Jackson.

Driver Quotes

James Thompson: "There was so much going on out there, it wasn't like usual, you were passing 3 or 4 cars a lap, there wasn't time to think about things. It was close out there though, there were a couple of stages where I lost time and a couple where Jason did - it was swings and roundabouts, but it's a great result. As for the car, I'm pretty happy with it at the moment - obviously we'll have the ballast to slow us down at Thruxton though."

Jason Plato: "The car was good overall, it's better on the brakes now. I'm a bit annoyed that when I got past James I made a small mistake at Clearways which let him back through. On the last lap I thought I'd have a go, in the hope that he'd make a mistake, but I knew I couldn't get past. There's a long way to go and it all started on Saturday. Never quite got the set-up right and I'll be battling my way back. Roll on Thruxton."

Phil Bennett: "I gave them an easy time by leaving the door open. I drove quite scrappily, I didn't drive very well and I'm lucky to be on the podium because Yvan had a problem with the car, I think it was engine and the car was a lot stronger than the Peugeots so I was quite lucky really. As they improve, I'll improve. Realistically, there's more to come from me rather than from the car. I want to close the gap on Yvan, Jason and James in terms of lap times - I can only get better."

On the earlier sprint race: "Soper had a lightning start in the sprint race but didn't have the engine pull going into Druids and I didn't get clearly ahead so I couldn't slot in behind so I had to go wide and then Matt came in and hit me in the door. He knew I was there and expected me to back off and of course I didn't and he caught my front which was a shame cos it wrecked his race."