Jeff Smith punished for incident with Boardman

Eurotech Racing driver Jeff Smith was fined £500, given a reprimand and an endorsement of three points on his competition licence for the move which saw himself and Tom Boardman taken out of race one at Oulton Park.

Special Tuning Racing driver Tom Boardman had gambled on slicks for the first of the day’s three races, though it took some time before the gamble paid off. The slick-shod SEAT León was starting to make rapid progress through the field, passing the battling pair of Smith and Arena Motorsport’s Andy Neate on the final lap, and was lining up a pass on a struggling Matt Neal’s Honda Civic into the Island Bend hairpin.

But behind, Smith had a great run on Neate through Cascades and was edging ahead on the outside line, but pulled across too early on Neate’s Ford Focus and spun around, sliding on the wet grass and straight through the hairpin into the passenger side door of Boardman’s León, eliminating them both on the spot.

“I’d passed all those cars and just got alongside Matt Neal into the hairpin,” said Boardman after the race.

“I turned in and then bam, I’d been hit. I didn’t know who it was though until I got back to the garage. Another case of wrong place, wrong time though.”

The STR team worked hard on the car but missed the start of race two by two laps, but a great run in the final race saw Boardman finish in fifth position after starting 19th on the grid.

Smith went on to pick up a final point in race three, passing a damaged Jason Plato for tenth place on lap 11, but the stewards deemed the 45-year-old from Wellingborough responsible for the incident in race one, awarding a £500 fine, a three point penalty on his racing licence along with a reprimand.