Justin Hynes looks forward to a BTCC date in Kildare
IN the thoroughly awful NASCAR movie, Days of Thunder, veteran race engineer Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) tells dopey young hotshoe Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) that "rubbin' is racin'", a daft encapsulation that attempts to clue the audience into the fact that motor racing is all about crash, bang, wallop.
After all, Formula 1 fans will tell you that seeing two cars within a country mile of each other on a race track is about as rare as a witty bon mot from Kimi Raikkonen.
Then, of course, there's BTCC. In the top British saloon car series, rubbing is indeed racing. In fact, it's often an event in which there seems to be a lot of rubbing with a race thrown in for good measure.
All of which adds up to a pretty good spectacle and one which returns again to Mondello this weekend. The annual visit of the British Touring Cars to Ireland has become a major highlight of the Kildare circuit's calendar, a high-profile series, featuring big-name racers in shockingly quick cars with plenty of action to keep racegoers happy between burgers and beers.
Throw in some homegrown interest, a decently packed support programme and Mondello's BTCC weekend is about as good as motorsport gets in this country.
So what's on offer? How about a ding-dong between the four championship contenders over three races on Sunday, a triple bill in which the lead of the championship could change.
So far this season has been all about the Team Halford's Honda Integra DC5s driven by championship leader Matt Neal and with team-mate Dan Eaves running second in the title race.
All well and good until last weekend at the Croft circuit in Yorkshire when Vauxhall, who've had a strangely up and down season suddenly bounced back with a win for the championship's third-placed man, Yvan Muller, and also for Newry man Colin Turkington, who picked up his first win of the season.
It all leaves the title well poised as it heads to Mondello for round 16-18. Neal heads the pack on 179 points, with Eaves 17 points back on 152. But Muller has closed significantly on Eaves and is now just a point adrift of the Team Halford's man.
Lurking in the wings is Seat's Jason Plato on 122 points - a fair way off the pace but with 15 on offer for a win the weekend could see a major shift in power in the series.
ANOTHER to watch is VX Racing's third driver, Gavin Smith. The Dubliner, from Rathfarnham, is full-time in the series this year and has been putting in some solid performances in the third Vauxhall.
But it's not all just about the Touring cars this weekend. The support bill will also see some pretty tough racing for championship leads - nowhere more so than in the Porsche Carrera Cup where Donegal's Damien Faulkner will be attempting to nick the lead of that championship from arch-rival Richard Westbrook.
Faulkner took a second and a third in last weekend's dsouble header at Croft and arrives at Mondello knowing that he has a double advantage.
First is that the Kildare circuit is effectively home turf, but, second and more crucially, the weekend here will feature three Porsche races, to make up for one cancelled earlier in the season at Oulton Park. And at that meeting Westbrook failed to make the start of the race, ruling him out of the replacement race here on Saturday. It's Faulkner's best chance to close some ground on the championship lead.
That race takes place on Saturday when there'll also be Formula Sheane racing, but it's Sunday when the real meat of the weekend will be served up. Three touring car races, two more Porsche races, the British Formula BMW championship and homegrown action from the Dunlop Supercars and Fiat Abarths.
Racing starts at 10am and you should get there early. Use Gate 1 for entry to the car parks and then sit back and enjoy what promises to be one of the biggest racing weekends of the year at Mondello.