Former race winner to step in at BTC for Thruxton weekend.

On the same weekend that Matt Allison will step down from his drive in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, former team-mate Gareth Howell will make a return to the series after being called up into a race seat by BTC Racing.

Howell, who joined the team at the start of the season as a test and reserve driver, will take the place of Stuart Oliver who is forced to miss the weekend due to business commitments.

Howell had initially been set to race at Thruxton in place of Chris Stockton before he elected to make the trip to Hampshire, but will make further appearances for the team later in the year when Oliver is busy with truck racing commitments elsewhere.

With the team having switched cars prior to the last round of the season at Donington Park, Howell will now be reunited with the SEAT Toledo he raced during a part campaign with Motorbase Performance last year and will hope to repeat the kind of form he displayed in the first Thruxton meeting of the 2007 campaign - where he rebounded from an incident in race two to come from the back of the field to take seventh in race three.

"I'll actually be in my 2007 team-mate Matt Allison's car which is identical to the one I raced so hopefully I'll soon be able to blow the cobwebs away," he said. "Stuart can't do this one, I'm back and it feels great but I'm not in it just to do well for myself - I've been working hard with BTC since the start of the season and the key goal has to be to build on the very promising showing at Donington.

"Bear in mind Chris effectively missed both practice sessions at Donington with a clutch problem but still bounced back and got an eighth. That is impressive for a privateer team with no previous running with the car."

Howell and Stockton will hope to build on Stockton's eighth place finish in the second race at Donington, which saw the BTC Racing team break into the points for the first time this season.