Having suffered wretched luck since the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship returned to action following the summer break, Dave Pinkney was able to celebrate his best finish of the season at Knockhill after claiming a podium finish in the second race of the weekend.
Pinkney had been unceremoniously removed from race one after Gavin Smith got it all wrong at the bottom of SEAT Curve and t-boned the side of the Motorbase Performance car, leaving Pinkney's team with work to do to even get the car onto the grid for the second race.
However the black and pink Formula Nuts backed car took its place at the back of the grid before Pinkney stormed up the order to take the flag in fourth as leading Independent – later being promoted to third place when Darren Turner was excluded from the result.
"We'd have done the same in the first race as Mike Jordan, who I passed, came home in fifth so we could have had fourth in the first but such is life," Pinkney said after the second race was finished. "In the second race it was up to fourth from the back of the grid and it was good. It's hard to know where to start with that race really. We were compromised on set-up because we didn't have time to sort it due to all the damage from the first race so we went out with a 50 per cent wet, 50 per cent dry set-up. The car was doing 54's and was as quick as the cars ahead although we were handed it on a plate on the last lap really – there was carnage everywhere!
"We've had nightmares on the Saturdays and have missed the practice on three weekends in a row and you can't start at the back of the grid all the time. We had problems here and started at the back of the grid again so it could really have been two top four finishes, but this was a good result."
However the final race would see more problems for Pinkney, who slowed in the closing stages with a mechanical problem to take the flag in ninth place.
Source crash.net
|
