[woodcote]

Race Report - Finals Pt 2

The C Final lined up with Oliver in red, Isaac's sole Mega-G+ in white, Matthew in blue and Gareth stepping up to yellow...

   

It was Gareth who led the first lap, but Oliver was a little quicker and led at the end of lap two. Gareth and Matthew then both had offs, leaving Oliver leading Isaac. These quick Super-Gs were lapping incredibly fast - both the recovering drivers dipping below 6 seconds - but it's consistency that wins races...

   

Both Oliver and Isaac completed the two minutes without error, Matthew just failing to catch up with the Mega-G+ runner and junior medal winner. It was a cracking drive by Isaac, finishing just a lap back from race-winner Oliver.

The B Final saw top Mega-G+ driver Deborah (blue) line up against a trio of Super-Gs in the hands of Andy (red), Terry (white) and Oliver (yellow)...

   

Terry delivered a blistering first lap, but then inexplicably binned it at Turn One the second time round. That handed the lead to Andy, but Terry was back on the charge - banging in a string of sub-6-second laps. Andy managed one lap at that pace and then was off in the final corner on lap 6...

   

That was pretty much race over, except for Deborah keeping Terry honest with a scarily consistent run to the line  of 15 consecutive laps at 6.2 seconds. The gap at the end was 0.85 seconds, so just one slip-up by Terry would probably have cost him the win. Andy was third and Oliver fourth - seventh overall not helping his club championship challenge.

Terry would stay in white for the A Final and just needed to repeat his previous performance to be in with a shout of the race win. He faced pole-sitter Darren (blue), Jerome (red) and Pete (yellow)...

   

This was scrappy from the start - Terry crashing at the first corner and taking out Jerome...

   

Terry would be off again on laps 2 and 4, leaving Pete to try and hang on to a rapidly disappearing Darren. He tried his best, but was giving away around 4 tenths of a second a lap...

   

Pete's challenge ultimately evaporated with an off just after halfway - and he eased off after that to hold position and bag important championship points. Darren was on superb form, running mid-5-second laps without error. He banged in the best score of the night - 21.35 laps - and claimed his first HO A Final win since February 2016. There was late drama - Terry pipping Jerome to an unlikely third place right at the last.

Huge congrats to Darren - it was excellent to see him back on the top step of the WHO podium...

   

Here are all the stats from the finals...

   
Click image to make it bigger

Those results mark the halfway stage of the season - and Darren could bag his first WHO title since winning the 2013 Nascar championship...

   

Pete's runner-up spot puts him a handy 85 points ahead of both Terry and Oliver, who are tied in second...

   

Nathan has a big lead after his third maximum points in the Rookie of the Year competition...

   

But there's still a long way to go.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along on Wednesday to help make it such an enjoyable evening at the Barn. Special thanks goes to the set-up crew, race control team and everyone who stayed behind to pack away. We couldn't do it without you.

The next HO action on the calendar is our third WHO Mod & WHO Tuners race of the season on Wednesday 3 July. We have another one of Simon's classic Mod tracks to look forward to.