Mat Jackson dominates final Thruxton race

Motorbase Performance’s Mat Jackson dominated the final race of the day as he took the team’s second win of the day in his Ford Focus.

Starting second on the reverse grid, Jackson took the lead before the field reached turn one, with pole-sitter Dan Welch unable to get off the line as quickly as his rivals in the Proton. From then on Jackson never looked back and led every lap on the way to the finish line.

Welch held second for the first half of the race, holding back the much quicker Jack Goff in the West Surrey Racing BMW for five laps before spearing off to the left at Seagrave and ending his race in the barrier.

While hunting down Welch, Goff was also involved in a race long battle with Honda’s Gordon Shedden, with the two-time champion pulling off potentially the save of the season when he effectively drifted his way around the back of the circuit after contact with West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard.

The sideways moment allowed Honda team-mate Matt Neal to move up into second place, while Shedden continued to battle with Goff further behind. The duel came to an abrupt end when Goff lost control of his BMW going in to the chicane and colliding with the right-rear corner of the Honda Civic Type-R.

The incident ended Shedden’s race, damaging his suspension and leaving the reigning champion stranded on the pit exit.

Matt Neal hung on to second until the finish, while the Ciceley Mercedes of Adam Morgan, who had been hanging around the top positions all race, took the final podium position. The Triple Eight Racing MG6 duo of Josh Cook and Ashley Sutton rounded out the top five.

Collard came back to sixth after his incident with Shedden, with Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin, West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff, Eurotech Honda driver Dan Lloyd and Team Hard Toyota driver Mike Epps rounding out the top ten.

Eurotech racing completed another strong result with Jeff Smith and Martin Depper in 11th and 12th, while Jake Hill took another points scoring result in 13th for Team Hard. AmD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson and Team Parker Racing’s Alex Martin rounded out the points positions.

While no-one suffered from a traditional “Thruxton” puncture, Motorbase Ford driver Andrew Jordan suffered a left rear puncture and retired on the seventh lap, while the Speedworks Toyota Avensis of Tom Ingram retired with a seemingly mechanical issue with just three laps to go.