Former World Superbike ace, Aaron Slight, notched up our first BTCC Touring Class Independent Cup win in the Sprint race at Oulton Park yesterday. The Kiwi's Barwell Motorsport Vauxhall Astra was one of the stars of this race, as it came out on top of a scorching battle against the factory Honda of Andy Priaulx and the factory Proton of David Leslie on the way to finishing sixth overall.

We knew that this event was always going to be tough for our drivers, as neither Slight nor his team-mate, teenage sensation Tom Chilton, had raced on the demanding Oulton Park Island circuit before. It's a track which requires nothing less than total commitment into its high speed bends, if a driver is to achieve a good lap time, and that's a pretty tall order when you're new to this kind of circuit. Their task was made all the harder by the fact that there was no official pre-event TOCA test at the Cheshire venue.

With the BTCC grid getting more and more competitive at every race, just a few tenths of second can make the difference between securing a spot in the top five in qualifying and being on the outskirts of the top 10. Whilst Chilton had been the right side of this bracket at Brands three weeks ago and qualified fifth, both him and Slight found themselves bumped down the order at Oulton as they got to grips with it. Although they made excellent progress as Saturday's official qualifying session went on, they found themselves just the wrong side of those few tenths of a second in 10th (Aaron) and 11th (Tom) places.

At the start of the 15-lap Sprint race, Aaron immediately got stuck into the action and outfoxed the factory cars of Priaulx and Paul O'Neill (Egg Vauxhall Astra). He thus took up station behind a hectic battle for sixth place that involved the VLR Peugeot of Tim Harvey, the MG ZS of impressive newcomer, Ford Fiesta champ Colin Turkington, and Leslie's Proton. Tom, meanwhile, was enjoying his own tussles just behind this group, having been boxed out at the first corner and forced back down the order. Despite his racing inexperience, the 17-year-old started to pick off the seasoned pros ahead of him during the first half of the race. First to fall was the factory Honda of Alan Morrison, followed by the factory Proton of Phil Bennett, and soon Tom had latched onto the tail of the MG ZS of former BTCC Production Class star, Gareth Howell.

Back in the fight for sixth, however, things got a bit too heated between Harvey and Turkington at the chicane, resulting in the latter being knocked off the track and out of contention. Shortly after half distance Harvey then encountered some car problems with his Peugeot 406, and retired to the pits. This left the Barwell Astra of Slight chasing the wily Leslie's factory Proton for sixth spot, and in the lead of the Independents' Cup. Aaron resolutely hunted down former BTCC runner-up Leslie, but the Scot used his vast experience to keep our man at bay for a couple of laps and this allowed Priaulx to catch up again. Slight then found himself playing 'piggy in the middle' of this three-way battle, and had to repel several attempts by Priaulx to sneak ahead. With four laps to go, however, Leslie ran wide exiting the chicane and this allowed Aaron the chance to get a run on him as they blasted up the hill towards Druids corner. The Barwell driver made the move stick and was delighted to claim another top six result, and his first podium appearance as the winner of the Independents' Cup.

Just as Slight was getting the better of Leslie, Chilton also found his way past Howell to claim ninth position and make it a Barwell 1-2 in the Independents' division. Our joy was short-lived, however, as when Tom had been running so close behind Howell previously, it had restricted the airflow to the front of the car and sent the engine temperatures climbing. This briefly caused a haze of smoke to blow back into the cockpit of the Astra, and after he reported this on the radio the team told Chilton to back off in case the engine was in danger of blowing up. Although it was gutting for him to have to relinquish all those places he had fought so hard to gain, he very professionally followed the instructions. The engine temperatures immediately shot down once he was back in clean air, but he ran out of time to re-take any of the places and had to settle for 11th.

The Barwell drivers had less eventful Feature races, but both came home to score two more very important top 10 finishes in 8th (Slight) & 9th (Chilton). Slight had a bit of a fright when Turkington hit the tyres at the chicane just ahead of him, and flicked one onto the track which then got caught underneath the Barwell Astra. This cost Aaron several places in the early stages, and a great deal of time as he had to take to the grass to remove the offending item away from the front of his car. Tom also had his progress hampered, when he had to deal with a sticky gearshift downchange in the latter stages of the race. The Barwell Motorsport pit crew, meanwhile, were delighted with their pit stops which saw them perform some of the quickest tyre changes of all the teams. After both gaining two solid results in the Independents' Cup, our drivers now lie in 1st (Slight) and 3rd (Chilton) positions in this championship for the non-factory funded teams.