York racing driver James Thompson has confirmed his loyalty to the Honda team following the surprise announcement by two of his main rivals that they are to change teams.

Anthony Reid, who won both races in the British Touring Car Championship meeting at Brands Hatch at the weekend, has said that he is to move from Nissan to Ford, while defending champion Alain Menu is leaving Renault.

Asked if he is on the move, too, Thompson said: "I am a Honda man and I will remain so next year.

"Yes, there have been some tempting offers from elsewhere, that's all I am saying on that matter, because I feel I am doing a good job and I want to continue to do a good job for Honda."

Thompson was penalised 30 seconds at the end of the Feature race at Brands Hatch for crossing the white line of a prohibited section of the circuit and this put him down to ninth place and only three championship points instead of the nine he expected.

He was earlier second in the Sprint race won by Reid.

Harrogate driver John Bintcliffe clawed his way back from 20th to 13th place in the 25-lap Sprint race.

Bintcliffe, driving an Audi A4, had to start the Sprint from the back, the result of a technical hitch by the technicians who allowed him to take part in the qualifying session with a car that failed its ride height scrutineering.

But he raced from 20th to 13th by the end of the race.

It was a similar story in the Feature race, with Bintcliffe starting way down the grid but with forceful driving moved into 11th spot, but outside the points.

Selby's Jeremy Smith, driving in the Slick 50 Formula Ford championship, spun out of the race and lost the lead in the division one championship.

He was unlucky to head into a tyre wall after avoiding a spinning car ahead of him, only to be taken out by a following car.

The lack of points pushed Smith into second place in the division, but with drivers able to ditch their three worse results at the final reckoning, mathematically he is still the leader.

The much-awaited return of Nigel Mansell ended in failure.

In the Sprint race he connected with independent Vauxhall driver Mark Lemmer and went into the tyre wall. It seems that Mansell tried to fill a gap that was not there.

Lemmer's disgruntled comment was: "You'd think a professional racing driver would know if there was a gap or not."

Mansell retired from the second race when a nudge from behind sent him into the tyre wall.

"The driver apologised after the race, and I accepted his apology" said Mansell.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.