Thruxton 50th Anniversary Meeting
Mini Miglia Rounds 5 & 6
This meeting was a celebration meeting for Thruxton Race Circuit 50th Birthday and Thruxton put on a fantastic show with Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell and the voice of F1 legend commentator Murray Walker who were present to open the new Thruxton hospitality centre. Many F1 cars from Williams F1 were being demonstrated by the legend Guy Martin along with BTCC cars of Rob Austin & Rob Collard. The Red Devils Parachute display team added to the weekend for good measure as well.
Qualifying
We were privileged and honoured to be the Championship leader going into Thruxton, so this gave us a huge boost going into qualifying. Instantly on the first flying lap of Thruxton we set the benchmark time which was just short of the lap record, and we managed to secure the Pole Position for the whole session with consistent times. To say we were pleased was an understatement.
Race 1
Starting from Pole position in front of a huge crowd including the legends of Motor Sport as mentioned above was a dream come true, so now the hard work was to begin in converting the Pole to a Win. We made a great start and established the lead for what was an incredible battle with a gaggle of Mini Miglia’s dicing for position in the fast slip streaming turns of Thruxton, we led for majority of the race and so proud to inform you that we Won the race in style. This was the first Win for many years for me, and quite emotional to have repeated the Win that we got in 2010 at Thruxton.
Race 2
For Race 2 our fastest lap recorded lap of Race 1 determined the grid, so we started the race in P3, again we set off and instantly and by the end of Lap 1, we were leading in what was again a repeat of the first race with the top drivers in the series. The lead changed with myself leading 6 of the laps and Aaron Smith leading all the other laps. The 2017 Champion Rupert Deeth briefly got into the lead for a few car lengths, however a brave move at the chicane carrying too much speed saw Rupert spin which caused the bunch to take avoiding action which allowed Aaron Smith and myself fight for the Win in an epic last lap & last bend battle across the line that Aaron just beat us to the flag, but another great 2nd place podium for the team.
We extended our Championship lead further and the next meeting is in Holland in 3 weeks’ time to try and repeat our Thruxton domination.
Many thanks to you all at Mini Sport for the continued support.
Blog courtesy of Dave Drew – Mini Sport Miglia 29
Stay up-to-date with all of Dave’s results through the 2018 Championship on Mini Sport’s Facebook here.
