The Rockingham event starts the season with a bang, 3 MINI Challenge races to get competitors championship aspirations well underway.  This year the MINI Challenge is made up of 3 classes: The original Club and S Class cars plus the all new JCW (John Cooper Works) Class.  Read full story.

The original Club Class are based on the MINI Cooper with 135bhp, treaded Dunlop race tyres and race suspension.  The 2009 MINI Challenge was won by Luke Caudle in a Club class car, Luke has moved up to the new JCW Class and a new crop of Club drivers have arrived but form will be difficult to predict through the season as the new Club drivers get to grips with the challenge of MINI racing. 

The S Class car is based on the supercharged MINI Cooper S 210bhp car. With Dunlop slick racing tyres, adjustable suspension, rear wing and big brakes these are seriously quick MINI’s.  Last years S Class champion, Olly Mortimer and previous champions Arthur Forster and Martin Depper have all moved on for 2010, Forster and Depper to the cauldron of BTCC.  A clutch of experienced drivers new to the MINI Challenge join the S Class and it will be interesting to see how they get on against the experienced MINI racers. Watch out for Lee Allen, Steve Liquorish

New to the MINI Challenge for 2010 is the JCW (John Cooper Works) Class. Based on the latest tubro Charged MINI Cooper S this is a real MINI racer, and it will be very interesting to see how the S and JCW classes compete with their different power characteristics.  2010 Champion Luke Caudle, has been posting some very respectable times in preseason testing but Chris Knox, Shaun King all have MINI race pedigrees and Jason Mills coming from a karting and single seater background could up set the form book in the JCW class.

Form aside we expect that a surprise or two may come from the talented new drivers the MINI Challenge has attracted this year and look forward again to a season of close MINI Challenge racing.