Seven stars from the 2024 British Touring Car Championship turned up a couple of weeks ago to do battle at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting, but one of its most celebrated didn’t, even though he’s a regular at the Sussex circuit’s retro extravaganzas. For four-time champion Colin Turkington, Goodwood was one event too many in what has been an intense warm-up around the UK’s humble clubbie scene.
No public-school-type house points this time for the down-to-earth Northern Irishman; instead it’s been a diet of Mazda MX-5 Supercup at Silverstone, Classic Sports Car Club BMW action at Donington, a Mini Se7en outing also at Donington, and back in the MX-5s at Snetterton.
Goodwood was wedged in between BTCC official tests at Croft and Donington Park, and the 42-year-old Northern Irishman also has the junior autograss career of older son Lewis – following in the wheeltracks of Dad for his fledgling steps in racing – to attend to.
“I didn’t want to completely disown my family, so I opted out of Goodwood this time around!” he laughs.
Even so, the opening round of the BTCC this weekend, where Turkington remains once again with West Surrey Racing and its squad of winter-developed BMW 330e M Sports, will be his fifth race event of the season. The preceding four have hardly been a success, not helped by mechanical problems at the CSCC weekend that forced him mid-meeting into another car, or a duff choice of rain tyres on a drying track in the Mini. But results weren’t the important thing.
“I’ve made a conscious effort to get myself race-ready because as you know testing’s one thing, driving around by yourself, trying to improve the car and setting lap times etc,” he explains. “But when the lights go out for a race, you’re in a completely different mindset and a different headspace, so I just wanted to get back in the groove and normalise as much as possible that race environment.
Source: Autosport