Austin scores on one-off return
British Touring Car Championship fan favourite Rob Austin scored points in all three races on a surprise comeback at Thruxton last weekend with the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall team.
Mike Bushell failed to be passed fit for Thruxton following his heavy shunt in the previous round at Knockhill. The team asked its ‘resting’ BTCC talisman Jason Plato if he’d like to do it. He didn’t fancy it. Then it tried 2019 Clio Cup UK champion Jack Young, but COVID protocols surrounding his World Touring Car Cup campaign scuppered that. Then PMR team principal Adam Weaver had an idea.
“Rob’s was the first touring car I properly sponsored,” said Weaver. “We went to school together,” added Austin, who had last driven a BTCC car when he gave his Alfa Romeo Giulietta a run at the mid-season Snetterton tyre test last year.
“Adam gave me a call on Tuesday night. I said yes without hesistation and proceeded to start shitting a brick! But I popped to the workshop the next day, and the touring car environment is so familiar to me that it was no problem. It was a bit of a stress to get my medical sorted because I had to find someone to do my ECG. But within 36 hours we had it all done.”
Remarkably, the Astra that Austin was driving was the one impacted so heavily at Knockhill – despite a lack of spare panels available. “The police have crashed a load of Astras, so we had to fabricate the sides from what we had,” said Weaver. Austin (above) drove it to 12th, 12th and 11th in the three races, but will give up the seat to Jade Edwards for Silverstone this weekend.
“I’m missing the racing incredibly,” said Austin, “but not the stress of it. When you’re in it, every waking moment is BTCC.”
Motorbase Ford driver Andy Neate (below) was excluded from the whole meeting at Thruxton for “an act prejudicial to the interests of motorsport generally in making a threat of physical assault by the use of his car to make deliberate contact with another competitor”. This followed an investigation into a collision with Carl Boardley’s Team Hard BMW in race one.