Rockingham and the Tornado that nearly was

Phew, it's taken me the bank holiday to recover from the madness.

This was the Saturday with weather any true Brit will talk about for years without shame. It felt like an opening sequence from the Day After Tomorrow.

Light rain was forecast so fair enough we all brought brollies and waterproofs but wow. First the qualifying was red flagged because it was raining so hard and then they cancelled the Ginetta race at the end of the day because it was too dark to race! The photo above was taken at 5pm but it look like it was late evening.
It was actually taken when a poor circuit official was dispatched into the rain to recover the many Dunlop sign boards having their own race around the circuit.

At the same time in the pit lane the teams were running out to retrieve any electricals they had under the buckling pit wall shelters and pulling down the garage shutters.

The main grandstand was evacuated by officials and we all were left huddling in the shelter by the track watching the spectacular storm passing over us.

Then there was disaster as an awning was visible from grandstand flying high above the garages. It was not until we ventured over to the Paddock we discovered that Jack Goff's hospitality trailer awning had been picked up and dragged away from the trailer. When we arrived there were people on ladders trying to cut the remaining supports of the trailer so they could make it safe. Fortunately were were soon informed that there were cuts and bruises but no serious injuries.
Other teams in the paddock had evidence of damage in their awnings and one of the Ginetta teams in their exposed paddock outside the circuit was unlucky enough to lose their awning too. The Renault hospitality was also being repaired when we left later on. So more than one team is left with a heavy bill that for one was nothing to do with the racing.

As it turned out there were also a lot of soggy campers over night, Barmy Army posted a video (sorry, I can't seem to find it now) of rivers of water running through the campsite.


Luckily for everyone Sunday was a much nicer day.
I could go through all of the race day results, but you can get those from the BTCC website and if you've already watched the racing you don't need me to bore you with that.
Let's get straight into the nitty-gritty.

In lighter news, Rockingham race day was the first racing experience for young baby Dexter Welch and in honour of his arrival some fans got together at Turn 1 and made sure he felt welcome:
There was a big sign held up saying "Welcome Baby Dexter Welch". Lucy Welch later said thank you when a video of it was shared on the Welch Motor Sport Fans facebook page.
But Dan did not have a great weekend. Taken out 2 laps into race 1, his steering column snapped as he began the green flag lap on race 2 and in race 3 he was taken out with broken suspension.

Poor Dan, he's a lovely guy. We went to see him after race 2 and we got high fives and fist bumps from his little girl Skylar.

The naughty fan favourite Rob Austin was forced to start from the back of the grid for race 1 after a penalty for contact with Adam Morgan at Knockhill put him on his third strike.
This will be happening to Colin Turkington at Silverstone since he got his third strike at the weekend for overtaking Jake Hill under yellow flags.
Rob remains a firm favourite with many no matter where he finishes because, like Dan Welch, he engages well with the fans, but the other draw may be these two often spotted together with Rob during the open pitlane events.

The lovely Jo Paddon and the very quiet Mike the Mechanic

You may have noticed collection buckets being aimed in your direction if you were in the pit lane on Sunday and near the the Handy Motorsport garage. This is because Simon Belcher (team boss and former BTCC driver) is taking part in a charity jetskiing event this weekend (Championship event) to raise money for Cancer Research. You may not know this, but before Simon switched to cars he was a European Jet Ski Champion.

So, who else had a good weekend??? Was there someone called Aron who had a good time?

He is now the 12th race winner this season and he was absolutely over the moon with his win after a weekend that looked like it was going to be middling one he gave BKR their very first win.

Well done Aron!

Once again we finish a race weekend with debates on driving standards and another slew of penalties issued to drivers from all parts of the grid and all levels of experience, all the way to Colin Turkington who has been racing in BTCC since 2002 and really should know what he's doing.

There was also further debate in the BMR/TOCA/Plato engine parity debate, with BMR issuing a clarification to their earlier statement and TOCA issuing a clarification of their own. I have a feeling this will be going on all season. See the news article here.

In short, BMR corrected their previous statement to add that other teams had made similar Homologation Extension applications only for TOCA to come back saying "no other team has ever made such an application" and then to further refute Jason Plato's complaints by stating that the point of the homologation is to give cars an equal power factor, not to ensure they all have the same top speed. In other words, what you do with your power is up to you once you have the same potential power to work with.

Don't forget that today is the Tuesday after a race weekend and that can mean nothing other that TinTopTuesday! Tune in a 8pm.
ADDENDUM: This weekend TinTopTuesday is actually being broadcast on Wednesday.
his is the first time it's ever happened and I'm sure Alan will have some explaining to do!

If you haven't listened to it before, why not?

Our very own Alan Hyde interviews the drivers of particular note (for good or bad) from the weekend and it's not uncommon for Alan Gow to drop in and other important people from the series who don't normally get the limelight since they don't sit in the cars.