Martyn Bell was left to rue a weekend of bad luck as the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship reached its half way point at
Croft, but has vowed to bounce back from the disappointment of his second 'home' round of the year when racing resumes after the summer break.
The Arkas Racing with Sunshine.co.uk driver was targeting his first outright points finish of the campaign in the North East, and although he managed to score towards his Independents' Championship tally, bad luck prevented Bell from fighting towards the top ten on arguably the most challenging race day of the season so far.
After the opening race was stopped following an accident for Stephen Jelley and Alan Taylor, the field lined up for the restart, but with parts of the circuit almost under water and rain continuing to fall, Bell suffered a spin at Hawthorne on the opening lap. With three cars aquaplaning off at Tower, the Safety Car was called out, which allowed Bell to close onto the back of the field but he was left with a 20th place finish when the race was then red-flagged for safety reasons.
After avoiding a spinning John George on the opening lap of race two, Bell ran in 19th place behind team-mate Erkut before an error on lap six dropped him to the back of the field. He quickly closed down a five second deficit to George and battled past the TH Motorsport man, although he could only climb to 16th as other drivers hit problems.
An incident with George and Andrew Jordan on the first lap of race three then left Bell with a damaged front upright on his Astra Sport Hatch. Although he tried to recover to the pits in the hope of repairing the car and returning to the race, the broken upright had also damaged his steering and he ran off track at the next corner and was forced to call it a day.
