It was a weekend of two halves for Paul Rivett in the penultimate event of the British Truck Racing Championship season at Pembrey.
The meeting began brilliantly for the Tachosys-sponsored driver. Rivett took a double pole in qualifying and converted that to a win in the opening race. He then stormed through the field from the partially reversed-grid to take second in race two.
In both races, especially the second, he had newly-crowned Division 2 champion Luke Garrett right on his tail, but Rivett was able to keep his rival behind each time.
“It started off so well as I took two more poles, which means we’ve had eight poles out of the 14 available so far,” said WDE Motorsport driver Rivett. “In the second race he [Garrett] was right behind me so I had to pull out all the tricks to keep him behind. He’s a double champion so to beat him to pole and finish in front of him is good.”
But then it all went wrong. In the third race, Rivett suffered a power steering problem and had to coast home before the issue got even worse in the finale.
“I managed to limp the truck home in the last race with no power steering at all,” explained Rivett, who elected to start at the back rather than risk starting the final race from pole. “We just limped around to pick some points up.”
It was a disappointing end to a weekend that promised so much. But Rivett remains in the thick of an intense battle for second in the standings.
“It’s still all to play for as it’s a really close four-way fight,” he added.
The outcome of that battle will be decided at Brands Hatch on November 2-3, but before that Rivett is back in action for the final round of the Fun Cup season at Oulton Park.