Plenty of teams hit the track during the summer break to retain a racing edge, but Matt Neal took a slightly different route to the rest of his Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rivals.
While other teams took to Brands Hatch to pound in the laps and improve their cars, the Honda Yuasa Racing man was in the Caribbean – though not quite as you might expect.
The British champion was at the Autodromo Mobil 1 circuit, racing in the Dominican Republic Touring Car Championship in an old Team Dynamics Honda Integra – called an RSX out there.
“It went okay,” he told theCheckeredFlag.co.uk, “I finished 3rd in the race behind [the Lexus of] Victor Gonzalez Jr, who's currently racing for Toyota in the NASCAR Nationwide series, and [Seat’s] Jordi Gene, who is racing for VW in STCC.”
A lesser know series perhaps, but the championship provided a very unique challenge to Neal.
“It was very hot!” he says. “It was good fun but very different. The regs are pretty open so they allow more things, but then they have to run on a road tyre, which takes some getting used to.”
Neal will be looking extend his lead in BTCC this weekend as the series returns to action at Snetterton.
