Plato ends day with victory

The RML Chevrolet Cruze driver started on the front row after finishing eighth in race two. He beat poleman Tom Boardman (Special Tuning Racing SEAT Leon) off the line and led throughout, despite a safety car period caused by Tom Chilton crashing his Arena Motorsport Ford Focus at Allard.

A great start from Mat Jackson (Motorbase Performance Focus) took him to second. He briefly challenged Plato, but could not keep up with the normally aspirated Cruze and ultimately only narrowly held off Boardman.

James Nash's Triple 8 Engineering Vauxhall Vectra was right behind Boardman at the end, and had the two Hondas of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden shadowing him in the late stages.

Earlier, when Chilton had run wide at Allard, Eurotech's Andrew Jordan ran wide too. That allowed Shedden and Neal to go by, the latter after some contact with the Vectra at the complex.

After the restart the fight between Nash, Alex MacDowall (RML Cruze), Neal, Shedden and Jordan for fourth got very close. Shedden was delayed, allowing Neal through, and MacDowall was soon shuffled back to eighth.

A struggling Jordan held MacDowall off to take seventh, some way behind the top six as the Hondas pulled away, while Tony Gilham took ninth in his Triple 8 Vectra.

After starting on row 10, Tom Onslow-Cole took his AmD Milltek VW Golf through the field to complete the points scorers.

Results - 18 laps:

Pos  Driver           Team/Car                Time/Gap
 1.  Jason Plato      Chevrolet             25m54.654s
 2.  Mat Jackson      Motorbase Ford          + 1.444s
 3.  Tom Boardman     Special Tuning SEAT     + 2.217s
 4.  James Nash       Triple 8 Vauxhall       + 2.601s
 5.  Matt Neal        Honda                   + 3.110s
 6.  Gordon Shedden   Honda                   + 3.463s
 7.  Andrew Jordan    Eurotech Vauxhall       + 8.790s
 8.  Alex MacDowall   Chevrolet               + 9.113s
 9.  Tony Gilham      Triple 8 Vauxhall      + 10.507s
10.  Tom Onslow-Cole  AmD Volkswagen         + 11.062s
11.  Jeff Smith       Eurotech Vauxhall      + 17.682s
12.  Andy Neate       Arena Ford             + 18.300s
13.  Rob Collard      WSR BMW                + 18.468s
14.  Paul O'Neill     Tech-Speed Chevrolet   + 19.568s
15.  Liam Griffin     Motorbase Ford         + 19.875s
16.  John George      Tech-Speed Chevrolet   + 26.512s
17.  Nick Foster      WSR BMW                + 27.293s
18.  Chris James      ES Chevrolet           + 54.655s

Retirements:

     Tom Chilton      Arena Ford                5 laps
     Frank Wrathall   Dynojet Toyota            2 laps