Hughes Makes History
Tony Hughes went into the opening round of the 2011 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship entering the unknown in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis with the car having never competed in a race before.
Troubles would hamper the Knutsford-based driver all weekend with overheating and power-steering problems puzzling the Speedworks team for much of the day. Following the problems Tony would only manage to qualify 3.5s down on the time of Matt Neal but only 0.287s slower than the other NGTC car of Frank Wrathall.
Tony made history in the BTCC as he finished the first ever race in an NGTC car. This came in race two when he took the checkered flag after encountering an oil pipe problem in race one.
Speaking about his achievement Tony said, “It’s great to finally be a part of the British Touring Car Championship and I’m very proud to have been the first person to finish a race in an NGTC car. I see no reason why we can’t push on and start competing with the cars ahead of us”.
“We’ve got some proper mileage on the car now”, commented Tony, “We’ve still got a lot of issues to iron out, but nothing that a few extra test days won’t fix.”
Race three would be also be problematic for Hughes. Handling problems would put a dent to Hughes’ performance which would later be found out to be a collapsed rear-suspension. Despite the problems Hughes was encouraged with the progress that the team has made throughout the weekend. Tony would manage to lap in a time of 50.714s, which was just under 2 seconds slower than the time of championship leader, Jason Plato, after having limited time in the car.
The team will travel to Donington Park on April 14th in time for the second round of the season where the team will hope to iron out the problems encountered at Brands Hatch.
Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)
James Mappin
