Fifer Shedden survives 10G shuntposted in BTCC02 | 04 | 2011
FIFER GORDON SHEDDEN faces a desperate race to keep his title hopes alive even before the opening round of the British Touring Car Championship gets underway at Brands Hatch tomorrow.
The 31-year-old from Dalgety Bay, one of the pre-season favourites to lift the championship, walked away from a spectacular crash which wrecked his Honda Civic in this morning's practice.
Shedden, who had been lying third-fastest with only eight minutes of the session remaining, miraculously emerged unscathed from the wreckage after his Civic ploughed straight on at Paddock Hill Bend, at the end of the 100mph-plus straight. The car hit the barriers with an impact of over 10G, causing the session to be stopped.
"We're not too sure what happened at the moment," Shedden admitted immediately afterwards. "It was all good and then it just went straight on. We thought it could be a puncture, but we're not sure so we're checking. They're going to try to fix it, but I think we're out for the weekend." But later, team boss Steve Neal pledged to get the Scot on the grid for tomorrow's races.
"We definitely won't be out for qualifying this afternoon, but one way or another we'll have Gordon on the grid for tomorrow's races. I wouldn't vouch for the car's set-up, but it'll be roughly right. We've got another car we can bring in and use, or we'll rebuild this one." And Neal confirmed the crash wasn't down to driver error.
"It looks like there was a cut in the tyre," Neal explained, "but it was not a failure of the tyre."
Shedden's team-mate and former champ Matt Neal took pole position for the opening race in tomorrow's triple-header. The Honda driver's time of 48.201secs was 0.255s quicker than the Vauxhall Vectra of second-placed Andrew Jordan.
And while defending champ Jason Plato starts third in his Chevrolet, there was a solid debut from BTCC rookie Dave Newsham. The Inverness-based driver, stepping up from having dominated last year's Renault Clio Cup, qualified just 1.036s off Neal's time; but such is the competitiveness of the BTCC, Newsham lines up 15th in his BMW 320is.
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Jim McGill