Wood Points Tally Up

Not even an engine and two drivetrain failures could prevent the production class TH Motorsport Mitsubishi Carisma finishing both the Round 7 Sprint and Round 8 Feature races in the British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone over the Queen's Golden Jubilee weekend.

With the engine expiring in the first free practice session on Saturday, the team was unable to attempt any set up changes and during Sunday's qualifying session, progress was hampered by an intermittent drive train fault.

Just as the cars were about to leave the pit lane for the fifteen lap sprint race on Monday, the sky turned black and the rain, which had been expected, came down. With all the competitors now on wet tyres, the start was clean with very little incident despite an enormous plume of spray being created. The Carisma, with Steven Wood at the wheel, moved into a comfortable eleventh place tracking a midfield pack containing five cars. At mid-distance the Mitsubishi was up into ninth and things were looking good for a point's finish. However the position was to be short lived as drive train gremlins took hold for the second time during the weekend and Wood was forced to slow and fall back into the clutches of his pursuers, finally finishing in eleventh place.

For the twenty five lap feature race, the track was dry and all the cars were on slick tyres. It was a clean start second time around, with the bright red Mitsubishi settling into eleventh yet again, behind a gaggle of battling Hondas and BMWs. As the race progressed Wood moved up into ninth, a place he was to keep to the end, despite a return of the rain near the end, gaining valuable championship points.

"Yes, I thought two point's finishes would be possible this weekend even though we were unable to use our most recent development engine," Commented Steven Wood. "I was disappointed not to hold onto the points in the sprint race especially as I only lost out on the last lap, but that's the way it goes sometimes and we did gain some in the feature."

TH Motorsport Team Principal, Trevor Humphrey said, "The most pleasing aspect of the weekend, which was purely down to the hard work and professional attitude of the team, was that the majority of our sponsors and supporters were totally unaware of our problems."