Mixed fortunes for Jenkins at Thruxton

It was a weekend of mixed fortunes for Dave Jenkins racing his “MAN in Black” in the third round of the British Truck Racing Championship at Thruxton (01 & 02 June 2013).

First he enjoyed a Super Saturday, with the truck in good form and showing some good pace following the modifications made since the Brand Hatch meeting, with Dave posting the second fastest time in qualifying. The team continued to tweak the set up throughout the day, and Dave’s determined charges in the reverse grid starts resulted in him posting two second place finishes and also a fastest lap time.

Spurred on by their Saturday performance the team went into Sunday full of confidence, only to suffer from bad luck and the kind of misfortune that can happen in a closely contested race situation.

Race three was red flagged on lap seven after Ben Horne had a big collision in the pit lane. Fortunately Ben was ok but his truck and the pit wall were both heavily damaged. As two thirds of the race distance had been completed the result was declared as at the end of lap six, with Dave sitting in fourth place at that time.

Worse was to follow in race four when Dave, having made a great start passing traffic to gain second place, had a coming together with Rick Collet’s truck while contesting for track position. This sent the “MAN in Black” into a heavy spin and a dramatic collision with a barrier that caused extensive damage and ended the team’s racing for the weekend.

Dave Jenkins was naturally disappointed by the change in his fortunes. He said: “On Saturday we were flying. The set-up of the truck was spot on and having posted a fastest lap time and been ahead of Mat Summerfield in race two I was confident of another good performance on Sunday.

“Sunday started well, in the morning warm up I’d posted the second fastest time just behind Summerfield so I was looking to do well in the day’s races. However in Race three Ben’s bump happened after two thirds distance had been covered so it was declared over while I was sitting in fourth, a real shame as I was on a charge and could have made up some more places had the race continued.

“The day then went from bad to worse as unfortunately Rick and I had a coming together on the first lap of race four that sent me into the barrier and caused so much damage that I had to retire. Again a real shame as the truck had some real pace and I would have been contesting the win.

“When we got the truck back into the pits it was clear that there was too much damage to get out for the last race of the day. The only plus point is that I’ve moved up the driver’s championship and am now sitting in second spot with 105 points behind Mat Summerfield who has 134.”

James Jenkins, Principal of the Jenkins Motorsport team added: “The truck has sustained a fair bit of damage but I’m confident we’ll have it ready for mid-July when we head to Germany.”