Last weekend, Thruxton Circuit hosted the third event of the BTRA Truck Racing Championship 2015, combining the most powerful race vehicles in British motorsports with the UK´s fastest circuit.
After the successful race weekend in America and a great media day in Silverstone, Stuart Oliver was looking forward to competing at this 2.35-mile high-speed track, which puts high demands on the turbocharged 12-litre diesel engines whilst requiring the drivers’ full attention. Tough competition was expected amongst the drivers of Division 1. After the furious weekend at the Pembrey Circuit three weeks ago, which caused a lot of damage for several teams, he hoped that Thruxton would prove cleaner and fairer on all concerned.
Team Oliver Racing once again participated with two race trucks but presented a new driver for the Scania since Luke Taylor was unable to attend this event. Shane Brereton, who races with a Kelsa-branded pickup truck in a side championship took the chance to get his first go in a real race truck. Although he has never raced a one-thousand-horsepower truck before, he handled the Scania really well and secured himself an outstanding 8th place amongst 20 other competitors in the qualifying and warm-up session. In all five races he finished among the top 10.
Stuart Oliver´s weekend started off very promising with him accomplishing the fastest lap in the qualifying session. In the subsequent race that followed on the Saturday, he unfortunately was involved in a racing incident, which kicked him out of the leading field. He managed to regain control of the truck but despite posting fast laps was unable to make up the ground that was lost. The incident however did mean that the team had their work cut out to ensure that the truck was deemed safe and legal and cosmetically appealing to the eye. The team did not fail and everyone pulled out all the stops as always to get it race fit and ready for the second race of the day. The second race saw Stuart starting 20 seconds behind group 2 due to the split grid format. As expected he was very focused and his flying start helped him to move up through the pack very quickly. After the first two laps he settled into his racing and he started to overtake one after another until he finally crossed the finish line ranking first!
Sunday dawned and the team were in an optimistic mood after a day of two halves on the Saturday. Their optimism was not to be disappointed! Stuart was determined to show how much the truck had improved from Pembrey in part due to their hard work. With a demonstration of skilful driving, determination and a cool head he managed to secure two 2nd place and one 3rd place podium finishes on the Sunday. More importantly the damage to his truck was minimal which showed that the racing had been much cleaner and fairer.
Stuart would like to thank both his partners and his team for their support so far. With their help and belief it has helped him to get to the 3rd position in the overall standings of the championship.
The next event in two weeks will take place in Germany celebrating the 30th anniversary of the famous Truck Grand Prix on Nürburgring. Make sure not to miss it.
