GULFAIR GOLF READY FOR ROCKINGHAM RACE

Fresh from their stunning seventh overall placing in the British GT Championship at Oulton Park, the GulfAir racing team is in action once more this Sunday (3 Aug).

The venue for the latest round of the championship is the new Rockingham track in Northamptonshire, a tight and twisty circuit which should suit the team's turbocharged Volkswagen Golf GTI. A new factory-sourced competition gearbox will, it is hoped, make a big difference to the car's performance.

"It's a superb piece of equipment," said driver Steve Wood. "We've tested with the new 'box in place and found it major improvement. The Golf felt fantastic. "It should enable us to run at a much higher top speed, and the gear ratios will be much better spaced to suit the car's performance. I'm optimistic of a good result at Rockingham."

Former BTCC racer Wood will share driving duties on Sunday with Cambridge Business Travel boss Stuart Scott At Oulton in mid-July Scott and Wood proved that the Golf's nimble handling and reliability is a useful weapon against much more powerful and exotic machinery.

Among the nine cars it beat to the chequered flag were a brace of Ferraris, a Porsche GT3 and a TVR T400R. Stuart and Steve's ART-prepared and Cambridge Business Travel-backed Golf crossed the line three laps behind the victorious TVR of Shane Lynch and Piers Johnson, seventh overall and fourth in the GTC class.

July 31st 2003