Wood Finishes Season with Point

The Steven Wood, TH Motorsport combination returned to the 2002 Green Flag MSA British Touring Car Championship action for the finale at Donington Park last weekend, with the production class Mitsubishi Carisma sporting the colours of Virgin Atlantic who in partnership with Cambridge Business Travel sponsored the team for this event. TH Motorsport were making a welcome re-appearance in the championship, their showings this season having been limited by other motorsport commitments and problems with one of Wood's earlier sponsorship agreements.

 

Nice to be out again

a lot of the weekend was spent investigating an oil leak. This lost Steve time during practice, and both qualifying sessions.

Stuart and Steve sharing a joke

new sponsor Virgin Atlantic.
Photo by Ruth Alexander [ruth.alexander@virgin.net]

ready for the off

Having put disappointing and problematic free practice and qualifying sessions behind him, Steven lined up the red Mitsubishi on the rear of the grid for the first sprint race. From the green light the Carisma claimed four places moving into ninth position in class and although Steve was to fall back into the clutches of two of his pursuers by lap four, he continued on the pace until the engine appeared to loose it's power edge. As the race progressed one position was reclaimed, Wood finishing in tenth place and claiming one championship point.

Again, this time from the rolling feature race start, the Carisma was launched up through the field and looked good for a further points finish, however Steven's race ended prematurely on lap three with a minor drive train component failure.

what a treat -
I held the pole for the sprint race!!

photo by Kelvin .[mg_maestro@hotmail.com]

with Alan Hyde the commentator

pitlane walkabout

these eight pictures by
Ruth Alexander

[ruth.alexander@virgin.net]


A disappointed Steven Wood commented, "We set ourselves a realistic target of two points finishes for today and as I sat on the grid for the second race, felt this was in our grasp. Unfortunately the component failure put paid to that. I wish to thank the TH Motorsport Team for their hard work and efforts this year and my sponsors for their support. Several options are available to me for next year and I will be considering them all over the next few weeks."


"I don't believe we saw the best of Steven Wood this year", said TH Motorsport Principal Trevor Humphrey, "The biggest problems were our lack of testing for various reasons and Steve's lack of time in the car. However we showed that we can compete at the highest level and we also have several options to be considered for next year."

ENDS
23/09/02