by Jon Parker

Created on: December 15, 2006

Touring Cars Thruxton

With action, controversy, overtaking galore and the strongest competition the series has had in years, this weekend's BTCC season opener brought the championship back to its heyday.

Race one
Race one was the first sign that touring cars were back to their panel-bashing best. Although, James Thompson led from lights to flag, behind him positions were changing throughout the sixteen-lap race. At the start, Thommo made a blinder of a start, putting to rest the ghosts of all his bad starts last year. Matt Neal also got away well, jumping from fourth to second ahead of Muller. He pushed Thompson all the way but the VX Racing Vauxhall was able to hold off the Team Computeach Honda to the end. As the field reached the complex of Campbell, Cobb and Segrave, there were tussles all the way down the field, with contact almost inevitable. Colin Turkington, Carl Breeze and John George were all spun off in separate incidents. Wallace pitted to retire, as did Breeze after he was tagged by Michael Bentwood at Noble. The Sureterm driver said, "I am very disappointed. I had got from 15th to 7th in three quarters of a lap - the car looked good. I was flat in 5th gear at 110mph when Bentwood hit me from the rear, spinning me infield. He had made a bad start and tried to regain all his places in one lap, which was never going to work."

Dan Eaves took Jason Plato, moving him up to 5th behind Anthony Reid. Behind them, there was an incredible scrap for tenth between Charlie Butler-Henderson, Rob Collard, Tom Chilton and James Kaye. Collard got past Butler-Henderson and began to pull away from the other three whilst Kaye attacked Chilton. But before Kaye could get past, Chilton overtook Butler-Henderson and went out to catch Collard. On lap 14, he finally took him the final chicane at to move him up to provisional pole for race two. There was even more incentive than usual because the race two grid was set from the results of the first race. However, the top ten finishers of race one were reversed for the race two grid. This made a tenth place finish in race one much more important than eleventh place. This also meant that tenth place was more valuable than seventh or eighth place. With this in mind, Plato backed off on the final lap, letting teammate Rob Huff and Michael Bentwood through. Now down to eighth, racin' Jason slowed down coming up Woodham Hill to allow Shaun Watson-Smith past. The South African Team PSP driver, however, was not having any of it. He,

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