Last weekend, on 22nd and 23rd of April, T Sport Racing visited Pembrey in South Wales to compete at the second round of this year’s British Truck Racing Championship. The team were set for a good weekend, but no one would have ever expected the spectacular outcome overwhelming both, the team and its supporters!
On Friday afternoon, all teams were given the chance to participate in three half-an-hour test sessions. While Terry used this valuable time to get a good feeling for the new track, his team checked the newly built race truck – which had its debut at Brands Hatch only 4 weeks ago –and adjusted its set-up.
Saturday started off under bright sunshine and with a 7th place in qualifying. In the subsequent first race of the weekend, Terry managed to stay out of trouble and finished 6th. After crossing the finish line, however, one of his competitors was given a 30-second penalty for overspeeding. As a result, Terry moved up to 5th position scoring his first 6 points of the weekend.
As some teams dropped out due to technical problems on Sunday morning, the organisers decided to change the timetable and to run class A and B together. This created a full grid with 20 trucks and a great show with some highly entertaining truck races delighting the spectators!
The first Sunday race started off with some incidents right at the first lap and with the red flag brought out twice. Terry had two perfect starts at first, but was then at the third start pushed out at the first corner. As a result, his PE race truck spun and stalled. Terry brought his truck back on track and continued progressing well in the race after this rescue manoeuvre. Only as he was already half way through the race, he had to come to the pits for a short stop to get one of his rear mud guards removed. It had started to bury itself into one of the rear tyres. Nevertheless, he still finished the race within the points ranking 9th.
Race 3 started off very similar to the previous race earlier in the day. This time, however, Terry managed to keep up with the pack leading the race resulting in a fantastic race finish on 4th position.
Only 50 minutes later, the trucks were back on the grid and ready to race once again! This time, there were no incidents at the first few corners and another great start of Terry paid off! Terry got himself into the lead of the race pulling away from the pack as they were fighting for the position 2 and 3. The team watching the race was sharing the thrill of trying to hold on to the 1st place! Especially since the pack closing up to Terry consisted strong competitors– in fact, the four current championship leaders: Mat Summerfield, Ryan Smith, Stuart Oliver and Shane Brereton. Pushing the truck to its limits and staying calm and concentrated, Terry managed something incredible: He took his first victory of the 2017 season!
We all had tears in our eyes when we realised what we had achieved in such an extremely short time since we started to work with T Sport Racing. The first victory right at the second round of the season, that is just unbelievable! No one would have ever expected anything like this.
Due to the reverse grid rules, Terry obviously had to start the fourth and final race of the day from the back of the grid. But even so, he stayed strong and performed great. Not disappointing neither himself nor his team, he finished 6th.
All in all, Terry scored 30 points for T Sport Racing at the second race weekend of the current British Truck Racing Championship!
The team now has 2 weeks to get the truck ready, before setting off to Red Bull Ring in Austria where we will compete with the “big boys” in the European Truck Racing Championship. The next round in UK will take place in 5 weeks, on the 3rd and 4th of June at Thruxton. Make sure not to miss out and stay both thrilled and tuned.