Team Parker Racing saw their drivers Chris Swanwick and Adam Bonham survive a testing weekend at Rockingham to bring home a pair of top ten finishes each.
Nottingham based Swanwick secured a seventh and eighth place finished in the two races while Bonham brought home the sister car for a tenth and seventh place finishes.
For the leading Porsche Carrera Cup GB third driver Finlay Ratcliffe, the Rockingham weekend saw the youngster bring home the car in eighteenth position in both races; however the novice was setting lap times comparable to the drivers inside the top ten positions.
The popular Championship, which supports the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at all ten race weekends, saw two races of frenetic running between the youngest drivers on the grid.
The opening race of the weekend saw Swanwick made a flying start to jump from the outside of row four to second before starting to fall back down the field with an engine which was down on power. This problem meant that he was struggling badly down the straights and ended the eight lap race down in eighth position, just behind the sister car of Bonham.
Bonham had qualified as the best of the Team Parker Racing trio when he lined up seventh on the grid and recovered to seventh after an early moment which dropped him down the field.
The team replaced the fuel tank in Swanwick's borrowed Ginetta G40 ahead of the second race of the weekend, round four of the season. This race saw both Swanwick and Bonham in the wars. Swanwick was challenging for fifth on the second lap of eight and was forced to drop back after a collision. He managed to fight his way back to seventh, while Bonham had been running well before contact saw the youngster drop back to tenth at the flag. Swanwick reflected on his weekend: “Ginetta have helped us out and the team did a lot of work on the car after the first race. I couldn't really do anything, so the important thing was just to get a finish and score points for the championship.”
For rookie Ratcliffe, in what was his second race weekend had a number of incidents but successfully finished both races and is learning all the time. Ratcliffe had a short karting career before graduating into the Ginetta Junior Championship.
Former BTCC driver Tom Ferrier, Team Parker Racing's Ginetta Junior team manager said about the Rockingham weekend: “We sorted out some handling issues from qualifying and all our drivers drove their socks off in both races. Overall it was a bit of a disappointing weekend. After the first round at Thruxton we thought we had good potential, but onwards and upwards. The cars are mainly in one piece and it's just a week until the next round at Brands!”
The Ginetta Junior Championship again enjoyed live television coverage of the second race of the weekend on ITV4, as part of the live BTCC coverage. Brands Hatch is the host of rounds five and six of the 2010 Ginetta Junior Championship this weekend, the 1st/2nd May.
Photo credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
