Cook doubles up
At the start of the year this writer put Josh Cook as his dark horse for the championship, and after the first four meetings I was very much feeling the egg on my face. The egg has now been replaced with a Jeremy Clarkson-esque smug face as Cook has proven over the last two meetings that if he has the luck, he’s up there. Since Thruxton Cook has finished every race in the top ten and at Croft he really made the most of the pace at his disposal.
Starting from pole (thanks to Ingram’s ride height failure), Cook converted for a lights-to-flag win in race one, before attempting to do it all again in race two. It almost ended in tears, however, as he was hounded by the longest-serving driver on the grid and three-time champion Matt Neal. With Neal recently suggesting this, his 30th, may be his final year in the championship, you could see just how much he wanted the win and he did… sort of. A very robust move saw Neal take the lead, but also saw Cook shoved out the way, and while Neal won on the road, the officials duly swapped the positions post-race and Cook took an impressive double win, leading a Honda 1-2-3 with Jake Hill coming third in the older shaped Civic. Cook could only manage eighth in race three, but it was enough to rise him back into the top 10 in points for the first time since Donington Park.
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.