Dan Cammish survives late shower for Thruxton win
Dan Cammish survived a heavy downpour in the closing laps to secure his first win of the 2019 British Touring Car Championship season in the final race of the weekend at Thruxton.
With rain in the air at the start, Cammish made a solid start to the race to run third in the early stages behind the Vauxhall of polesitter Rob Collard and the BMW of Tom Oliphant.
The Honda driver made light work of getting ahead of Oliphant into second on the third lap and then set about trying to find a way ahead of Collard for the lead.
The pair would do side-by-side more than once into the final chicane before a small moment for Collard at Church on lap ten gave Cammish a run up Woodham Hill, with the Civic slipping through into the lead.
Cammish then started to break away at the front as rain started to fall, with the light showers becoming heavier in the closing three laps to make conditions on track particularly treacherous.
Keeping his car on track, Cammish was able to take the flag first to secure a first of the campaign for the factory Honda squad, with Collard and team-mate Matt Neal rounding out the podium.
It was a win that suddenly lifts Cammish right into title contention, just 34 points down on leader Colin Turkington.
Behind the top three, Adam Morgan capped a strong weekend with fourth place having joined Neal in passing Oliphant’s BMW just as the rain started to fall.
Oliphant would ultimately slip back to seventh, with both Jason Plato and Josh Cook sneaking past in the final two laps; with Cook also now right back in the title fight after his earlier race two win.
Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton and Andrew Jordan rounded out the top then with the latter taking more points out of Turkington in the fight for the title.
Jordan had run ahead on track throughout the race but had Turkington shadowing his every move. However, the rain would work in his favour as Turkington lost out to both Sam Tordoff and Jake Hill on the final lap – meaning Jordan closes to within 30 points of the lead at the end of the weekend.
Title contender Rory Butcher would miss out however, with a clutch issue on the green flag lap forcing him to retire.
