MINI SE 7 EN SAND MI G LI AS LAND B TC C SUPPORT SPOT
Fourracesformini7racingclubatthruxtonaspartofspecialcalendar
The Mini Se7en and Mini Miglia categories will support the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton next year as part of a special calendar to celebrate 60 years of Mini.
Both Mini 7 Racing Club categories will get two races around the Hampshire circuit at the first of two BTCC visits over the May 18/19 weekend and are set to benefit from live or delayedas-live TV coverage.
The club’s 2019 schedule also includes its popular visit to Zandvoort for the British Race Festival in July, a return to the MG Live event at Silverstone and being part of a revamped Mini Festival at Brands Hatch.
The BTCC support slot is a major coup as it’s not since the Super Touring Car Challenge appeared at Rockingham in 2015 that there’s been a ‘club’ racing category guesting alongside the UK’S premier series. It’s arisen as both the Renault UK Clio Cup and Porsche Carrera Cup GB are skipping that meeting.
The two Mini categories provided some dramatic racing at the Thruxton 50th anniversary meeting this year and Mini 7 Racing Club commercial manager Colin Peacock is excited to return.
“The club’s been going for 52 years and it’s the 60th year of Mini next year so we have put together a bit of a special calendar,” he said. “It wasn’t easy to do it with Rockingham closing down. We are very lucky that Alan Gow [BTCC series director], Dunlop and BARC have given us a helping hand to be with the touring cars at Thruxton. We do put on some great racing there and we are really excited about that.
“We feel it’s an honour and recognition of the grids we’ve had over the years. It’s a real breakthrough for us at the club in terms of attracting members. It’s very exciting and we’re looking forward to be live on television.
“MG Live is a big event and we haven’t been there for about 20 years so we’ve got some really good events. Last year we had some good grids and took nearly 60 to Brands Hatch for the Mini Festival.
“We’re also thrilled to go back to Croft. It’s a long way but it’s a cracking circuit.”
As well as the main sevenevent schedule for the championships, a winter series is also planned.
“We are doing a winter challenge starting in March at Silverstone for the first two rounds and the last three rounds at Brands Hatch in November which again is about getting more people on track,” Peacock added.
Pickup Truck Racing is set to return to the Mallory Park Oval next year after Motorsport UK has granted a licence for the circuit to be used again.
The Mallory Oval was last used by Pickups in 2005 and has since had its licence taken away. But, with Rockingham closing, the series has worked with circuit officials to try and get the oval back in use.
Oval racing has been an important part of the Pickup championship and it was the only category to use the Rockingham Oval in recent years. It now has two meetings scheduled at Mallory next year and series boss Sonny Howard hopes to add more in future seasons.
“With the demise of Rockingham, everybody said it would be the end of Pickup racing but that is not the case,” said Howard. “After Rockingham [closing] we want Pickups to still put on a show. We are going back to racing on the circuits again and we’ve got six rounds with the British Truck Racing Championship. But I believe the icing on the cake is the return to Mallory Park’s Oval.
“Twenty-two years ago that was where Pickups started racing under Eurocar. It will keep that part of the series going and that’s important – it makes Pickups unique.
“We’re going to try and make those events into something special and will work with Mallory Park to promote the events and we’re hoping to bring in other products so it ends up being a whole day [of entertainment]. It won’t just be a clubbie race meeting with trucks on the oval.”
Motorsport UK has granted Mallory the licence to reopen the oval – but it is only the Pickups that will be allowed to compete on it in 2019 and they won’t run in the anti-clockwise direction as they have previously. The UK motorsport governing body has also placed conditions on the licence.
The Pickups will be one of three series Howard’s SHP concern will run next season. The British Automobile Racing Club has handed SHP a threeyear contract to operate the Intermarque championship – which Howard has renamed Super Silhouettes for 2019.
“Super Silhouettes came about because BARC HQ took back the permit for it that was held from the South Eastern Centre,” explained Howard. “At the same time the drivers approached us because they felt SHP not only understood the product, we understood the mentality of the drivers. It’s our intention to make it into a national championship as opposed to one that was in the south east of England.”
The final part of the so-called ‘Power of Three’ is a new series for American-style Sprint racers, which Howard says was originally designed with the Rockingham Oval in mind but has now been adapted for regular tracks.
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