With many of his rivals having hit problems in a carnage filled second race at Rockingham,
Jason Plato secured victory in the final race of the weekend to extend his lead in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship standings.
The SEAT man was able to make it to the front of the pack near the start of the 17 lap race and was never headed from that point, as he clinched a third win of the season from
Mat Jackson with SEAT team-mate Darren Turner rounding out the top three.
With the top ten being reversed on the grid following the second race, Plato found himself starting from sixth place, but when the lights went green the 2001 champion made a stunning start to dive between Turner’s Leon and the SEAT Toledo of Matt Allison to go fourth, and then made light work of Dave Pinkney, Jason Hughes and John George in one move at turn two as the trio squabbled for position.
Pinkney would spin and drop to the rear of the field, with everyone managing to miss the stranded Alfa Romeo as they dropped down off the banking onto the infield, but as the field streamed round to complete the first lap, the slower cars had been dispatched from the front of the race with Plato leading from Jackson and
Tom Onslow-Cole – the Team RAC rookie having enjoyed a stunning start to jump up from ninth on the grid into a podium place – with Turner, George and Allison rounding out the top six.
As the early laps rolled through, so the quicker cars came through the pack, but
Colin Turkington wasn’t amongst them as a difficult weekend for the Northern Irishman came to an end when he retired on lap three. At this point, Plato still led from Jackson, but Turner was now up to third ahead of Onslow-Cole, while Tom Chilton had climbed up to fifth ahead of Allison. Double winner Fabrizio Giovanardi was seventh ahead of George, with the TH Motorsport Integra just ahead of the hastily repaired Team Halfords Civics of Gordon Shedden and
Matt Neal – the latter carrying an RAC banner around on its rear wing collected during the usual first lap melee.
