The Jaguar British 250 took place on the Rockingham Motor Speedway oval, marking the first time since 2002 the circuit has played host to top level racing on the unusual 1.479 mile quad oval. Luke Stokey qualified on pole position ahead of Will Taylor and Brock Kidd, and it was the American who got the best of the rolling start, leapfrogging into the lead. Taylor got into the draft of the American, and 10 laps later, The pair were pulling away from the chasing pack.
On lap 41, Mikko Heininen’s front right tyre blew out on the turn 4 banking, pushing his Chevrolet into the wall from 16th position. While Alex Wright who was in his slipstream somehow managed to avoid the Finn, Enzo Domenicalli wasn’t so lucky – clipping the rear wing and gearbox assembly and looping the car into a spin before firing into the wall on the infield. A full course caution was thrown, meaning Kidd and Taylor lost their advantage. By this point, Keith Murphy had managed to move up from 7th to 6th. Off the lap 46 restart, Kidd left like a scalded cat. The unusual layout of the oval meant the cars were still running a relatively high downforce specification, meaning running in clear air wasn’t necessarily a disadvantage, proven very adeptly by the American. Stokey in third managed to stick with Taylor, though there wasn’t a lot of movement between the two – it was instead Felipe Cesar in fourth who made an error, washing wide in turn two. He was lucky not to hit the wall, but he lost 2 positions, with Yakumi Takahashi and Murphy both moving inside. At the halfway mark, Kidd held a 1.8 second advantage over Taylor and Stokey, with the gap between the two chasing cars much closer – on the 4 consecutive laps between lap 85 and 89, there was a noticeable overlap between the two across the line. Murphy managed to get past Takahashi at the same time to take fourth, while Rodrigo Sanchez saw his Jaguar engine expire in a plume of smoke, but the oil was dropped well off the circuit meaning no caution period was required. On lap 118, Stokey finally managed to get into the slipstream of Taylor, taking the position from the Rodeo-Chevrolet driver. With 40 laps to go, Pedro Costa and Keith Boston were battling over 20th and 21st, but they were making headlines when the CopaMundo driver drafted past, but misjudged his advantage, swiping across the nose of Boston’s car, pitching both into the Rockingham SAFER barrier at 200 mph. The cleanup period was extensive, with 10 laps behind the safety car required to safely remove all of the debris – both drivers were thankfully unharmed. With 29 laps to go, the race restarted, and just like he had done all race, Kidd shot off. Stokey and Taylor couldn’t stay close, though Taylor soon proved he had the pace by overtaking Stokey once again on lap 153, and this time the Rodeo driver was noticeably quicker – closing the gap to Kidd slightly. However, with only 16 laps to go, Kidd was never truly challenged. Brock Kidd won the race by 0.8 seconds ahead of Will Taylor, with Luke Stokey in third place. Keith Murphy moved up the field from 7th on the grid to take a solid fourth, while Yakumi Takahashi, Felipe Cesar, Aron Einarsson, a lacklustre Marcus Thunder, Jamie Gerrard and Nick Addison rounded out the top 10.
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April 2018
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