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The 2019 BTCC Brands Hatch showdown was a thriller. Turkington had claimed a third crown in 2018 at the wheel of the 125i, and this time around he and team-mate Andrew Jordan were in the mix in the new BMW 330i M Sports. So too was Dan Cammish in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic, and team-mate Matt Neal was on hand to help on a slippery track.
“In race two, Matt gave Col a nudge down at Graham Hill Bend and turned him around,” recalls Bennetts. “He finished 25th, and we thought, ‘That’s it, game over’. Col thought the same, but it’s never over ’til it’s over.”
Cammish had the title in his grasp when, on the penultimate lap, he had brake failure at Hawthorns and crashed out. With Jordan fourth, Turkington’s rise to sixth was enough for a fourth title. “It’s our first ever 1-2 finish,” points out Bennetts. “We knew there was a possible problem with Dan’s car because we could see from about lap three or four his brakes were glowing red up into Druids, and we thought for that early in the race something wasn’t right.
“So yeah, poor bloke – totally out of Dan’s control. He locked up the rears and that was it. Game over. Colin was incredibly emotional, because after race two we’d had a little chat and we thought, ‘Right, just do our best, looks like it’s gone now’. So to then be told on the radio on the in-lap that he’d won it,
I’ve never seen him so emotional. He was banging the steering wheel, he was shouting – he’s normally Mr Quiet.
Dented the roof of the new 3 Series, but that’s all right – we didn’t mind that.”