THRUXTON race instructor Martin Bloss was looking forward to some great results after putting Ian Pearson’s (Didcot) Van Diemen RF83 Formula Ford 2000 on pole position for the first Spirit of Thruxton Race at their 50th Anniversary meeting.

However, it did not go to plan as he rolled the car on the first lap of the first race, but came back to race again on second

Bloss set the quickest time of a 1min 21.9 seconds lap which put him third on the grid and first in class behind two F3 Cars.

Unfortunately race one did not go to plan at all, not getting a clean get away he was overtaken by the cars of Tom Smith, Chris Levy and Andrew Smith going through the fast sweep of Allard Corner.

Bloss said: "It was not the best start I have ever had. I did not use enough revs and the car bogged a bit, I was not too bothered as I knew the pace was in the car, so I followed the cars through the complex and made sure I got a clean exit, this gave me the run on the cars through Noble, Goodwood and Church.

"I got a great slipstream out of Church and went down the inside of Andrew Smith and took the line into the Brooklands Chicane.

"Unfortunately, he wanted to dispute a corner that he had already lost and hit my rear wheel with his front causing the car to fly through the air and roll over twice before landing upright at the side of the track.”

This was game over for race one but after a trip to the med centre where the docs gave him a clean bill of health, battered and bruised he returned to the garage. It was fair to say the car was a mess.

All four wheels were damaged, the rear wing beyond repair, all four corners damaged, and the steering rack bent.

This is a massive amount of damage and there were a lot of long faces. After everything had calmed down Ian and his father Bob Pearson assessed the damage and initially thought it too great to repair at the circuit, however following a discussion and the very gratefully received offer of assistance from the Thruxton Circuit staff the decision was made to try and fix the car for Race two on Sunday afternoon.

Going out for race two, Bloss said: "It is difficult to assess how the car is going to behave on the formation lap, the speed is really slow and nowhere near representative of racing speed, I did notice the steering wheel was canted over at 35 degrees but the car seemed to go where I pointed it and everything seemed to work so we joined the back of the grid.”

This time Bloss got a much better get away when the lights went out and past his first car in the first corner then another down the inside going into Goodwood.

Bloss said: "I was driving pretty sedately for the first couple of laps. The car was cutting out through Goodwood and the steering was a bit strange but other than that didn’t feel too bad, so I started pushing harder and managed to pass another couple of cars."

This left him fifth behind David Rees, but about three seconds behind so he started hunting him down.

Bloss gradually managed to reel him in only to get held up by a backmarker at the fastest part of the circuit which cost a bit of time.

He thought that was it and we would run out of laps but he really pushed for the last three laps and managed to catch and pass going into the complex on the last lap.

Keeping it tidy apart from a massive oversteer through Goodwood Bloss managed to stay in front to the flag.

Bloss said: “I was amazed by the reaction to the crowd and marshalls on the warm down lap. The crowd were all clapping and cheering me as if I had won, not finished fourth so I suppose most of them had heard or seen what happened in race one. I have to say this was amazing. When pulling into the pit lane all the teams clapped us in as well.”

Summing up his weekend the Thruxton driver said: "It is fair to say that this was a very emotional time for the whole team, the effort involved in rebuilding what was effectively a wreck was phenomenal.

"Literally everyone rallied around, other teams and drivers and especially the Thruxton Staff who were immense and really came through for us.

"There are far too many people to thank but they all know who they are, but we must single out special praise for Bob and Ian Pearson and also friend and circuit manager Pat Blakeney whose never say die attitude helped carry us through, this is the true spirit of Thruxton.

The weekend also saw the opening of the new Thruxton Centre performed by 1992 World F1 champion Nigel Mansell and the legendary bike and car commentator Murray Walker, the new £2m centre is a great addition to the venue and will provide hospitality facilities, function rooms, exhibition space, and a new restaurant and bar for the race day fans.

To support Mansell's one of his former F1 teams, Williams were present, the team had Nigel's FW 14B Championship winning car on display know as Red Five, on the track former F1 driver Karun Chandhok ran some demonstration laps in the Keke Rosberg FW08C Williams. Other paddock and on track displays include the Le Mann 24hrs 2015 Porsche 919, BTCC cars and BSB supersbikes to name a few.