High-speed battles for T Sport Racing at UK´s fastest circuit
At the first weekend in June, T Sport Racing attended the third round of the British Truck Racing Championship at the high-speed circuit in Thruxton near Andover.
On early Friday morning, the team was among the first ones to be all set for a great race weekend on UK´s fastest circuit. Due to noise restrictions, however, neither they nor anyone else were able to practice or test their set-up until Saturday morning. Yet still, T Sport Racing used the time in a wise and productive manner. After getting in contact with the guys from JK Motorsport, a BMW race team supported by Liqui Moly participating at the weekend´s support programme, we arranged a photo shooting on Friday afternoon to promote our common partner´s lubricants.
The first race day started with two free practice sessions, followed by qualifying at lunchtime. Having prevailed at the qualifying with an impressive sixth place, Terry Gibbon sadly had to pull off with throttle issues on the green flag lap. He thus had to restart from the pit lane. After resetting the system in the pits, things looked quite promising and Terry started to pick up even more pace throughout the race. Unfortunately, the problem wasn’t fully solved. As the fault occurred again, he fell back some positions once again. In return, he got hold of a front-row position on the grid of race two.
At the second run, Terry showed the qualities and abilities of his PE-branded race truck. He set himself in front of the field at the end of the first lap and kept his position for more than half way through the race – a quite challenging job, considering the enormous pressure the pack behind him built up. Let’s not forget that Terry Gibbon drives a race truck with a D28 MAN engine while most of the other teams use much more powerful D26 engines. And yet he stood up to his competitors for more than half the race. In the end, Ryan Smith was the first one to pass the chequered flag. David Jenkins and Stuart Oliver followed him. Terry Gibbon was unable to resist the attacks but stuck to the front positions finishing 4th!
Moments before the third race went off, a rain shower surprised all of the participants. Right after the start, a tight pack of squeezed trucks aimed for the second corner. Almost pushed by his competitors, Terry hit wet grass with one of his wheels and slid across the track and right into the path of Stuart Oliver. As a result, he ended up in the barriers and was unable to complete the race.
At the final race of the weekend, Terry went like a rocket fighting his way through the field and regaining one position after another. As he passed the chequered flag, he finished the race on ninth position – a pretty good result considering his drop-out at the race before.
After a challenging weekend with lots of ups and downs, Terry is currently 7th on the overall standings of the BTRC, but he is aiming on ranking further up with utmost dedication and perseverance.
In only two weeks from now, the T Sport Racing team will travel all the way to the South of France in order to race at an invitation event in Nogaro and gain some more experience before heading straight to the next official BTRC round at the famous Nürburgring circuit in Germany.
