Damien Smith
A week earlier, he had been jousting in the cut and thrust of the British Touring Car Championship season opener. Now here he was back at Donington Park, turning back the clock to race a tin-top from a distant past – and looked absolutely in his element. At least this time there was no pressure.
“There’s always pressure,” Colin Turkington gently countered, with that familiar easy smile. The four-time BTCC champion is a class act and yet again showed why, in one of the standout performances at the annual Donington Historic Festival.
Turkington was guesting in Mark Smith’s lovely E30-generation BMW M3, the 1980s three-box saloon that still defines the best of the lauded M division. This example was a Bigazzi car raced in the DTM in period by the great Steve Soper, a cult hero in touring car circles – and Turkington put in a drive of which prime Soper himself would have been proud.
The Northern Irishman was facing David Tomlin in a more powerful Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 in the 50-minute Historic Touring Car Challenge and took the first stint before handing over to Smith. It should have been an unequal struggle, but Turkington kept Tomlin well within his sights with a sublime charge, then headed for the pits at the same time as the Cossie.
The organisers, ever mindful of levelling the playing field, had decreed a longer mandatory pit stop for Tomlin, who was driving solo. Thus Smith emerged with a lead of 22 seconds with 17 minutes left on the clock. The chase was on.
Tomlin inevitably took chunks out of that gap and would have won, but his brakes and rear tyres were fading fast, and a spin at the chicane then ensured a win for the M3 duo.
“That’s my first win of the year but hopefully not my last,” said Turkington with another modest smile. “We gave the Cosworth a good race and Mark drove a great stint. It’s a long race for the RS500, which is probably not easy to manage.”
His ‘day job’ BMW 330e M Sport is the only rear-driven car on the current grid, and one in which he harbours hopes of clinching that record fifth BTCC title. But give him a chance to step back to how touring car racing used to be and he would grab it every time.
NEWEY’S INSPIRATION
A decent week, all in all. A few days before the Donington Historic Festival, I was sitting next to Adrian Newey at the Autocar Awards at Silverstone. As the gongs were dished out, I found myself longing to view the cars flashing up on the screen through Newey’s cultured eyes. Best SUV? “An oxymoron,” murmured a designer wedded to keeping it low and light.
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