Motorsport Showroom compete at the Silverstone Festival with BTCC Legend Matt Neal

Motorsport Showroom director, Harry Whale, was lucky enough to drive a Group 2 MK1 Ford Escort at the Silverstone Festival with the triple BTCC Champion Matt Neal as his illustrious teammate. The Escort was competing in the Historic Touring Car Challenge race, which is run by Motor Racing Legends, up against similar  Escorts and much later Group A cars who run in a separate class.
 

Fridays qualifying was a success with a class pole secured, just ahead of a MK2 Escort, setting up an exciting race. Matt Neal started the race on wet tyres after a sudden downpour in the assembly area and worked his way up the grid keeping 1st position in class and dicing with much faster machinery.

Matt handed the car over to Harry, with the decision to stay on wet tyres in the mandatory pit stop despite the drying conditions. The time saved by not changing tyres in the pitstops ensured a healthy class lead and the car even ran as high as 3rd overall before the wet tyres starting to go off. The slick shod cars started catching rapidly but Harry managed to hold on to 1st in class and an amazing 5th overall by just 2 tenths of a second at the line after 50 minutes of racing. What a finish! Some onboards and more exciting content from the Silverstone Festival event and what the Motorsport Showroom team got up to, is coming to the platform soon.