[woodcote]

Finals - Part Two

Matthew stepped up into yellow lane for the C Final, which featured Alex in blue, John (white) and Jerome (red)...

   

Matthew and John were neck-and-neck first time round, with Matthew given the benefit of the doubt by Race Coordinator. John had a small gap after lap 2, followed closely by Matthew, Jerome and Alex - it had all the makings of a classic. On such an unforgiving track, incident-free runs are rare - and Jerome had a couple of mishaps to put him at the back. Alex joined him on lap 8, leaving John and Matthew in a race of the two gutter lanes...

   

Matthew was driving superbly and look the lead when John crashed on lap 9. That lead would last just 5 laps, until the first of a string of crashes put Matthew out of contention.  Jerome was now John's closest challenger, having recovered well, but was nowhere near John's relentless pace - he would need more errors from the leader to stand any chance of the win. John did have a brief off-track excursion, losing less than a lap, but his pace meant he retained the lead and could pull away again - crossing the line 1.3 laps ahead of Jerome. Not a comfortable win by any means. Alex could have been in the mix too, but five offs in the two minutes left him six laps behind his dad.

Of course, John stepped up to yellow in the B Final, and would be up against Andy (white), Oliver (blue) and Terry (red)...

   

Terry was quickest off the line and led the first three laps, before a big crash let the rest of the field through. Oliver took over for one lap and then crashed himself, leaving Andy and John in another battle of the gutter lanes. John is one of the few WHO racers capable of a challenging from the inside lane on a track like this. He concentrated on his own rhythm, attacking the race at his own pace - he was losing a few hundredths and occasionally a tenth to Andy, but stayed on the same lap and ahead of Terry and Oliver, whose races were littered with more crashes...

   

John slipped up just before half way, losing ten seconds after a big impact. Oliver was through into second, but three laps behind the leader - that would be nearly four by the end. John finished third and Terry fourth, Andy having a error-free run to the line...

   

Yellow awaited Andy in the A Final, giving us the top four qualifiers from the heats...

   

Pole man Pete had chosen blue lane, Gareth the outside white and Ryan red. Was this going to be a clean run to the chequered flag or another adrenalin-fuelled crash-fest? We'd soon find out...

   

Pete was fastest of the line, his slammed Super-G+ leading the first seven laps. By that time, Gareth and Ryan had both crashed - Ryan's a big one - and when Pete came off, it was Andy who took the lead. Concentrating on his own race, the 2.5-second laps in yellow were a couple of tenths slower than the times of the others, but Andy's lead lengthened as the chasing pack all crashed again...

   

A pause for a track break with 30 seconds to go showed Andy's lead at exactly 2 laps over Pete. However, Andy's rhythm was broken by the interruption - re-starting just before Turn 2, he binned it at Turn 3. Three and a half seconds were lost, meaning Pete was now just half a lap behind. With Andy still rediscovering his rhythm, the lead changed with seven laps to go. The gap at the end was two thirds of a lap or 1.695 seconds...

   

Here are the full results...

   

Congratulations to Pete on his win, to Ollie on another dominant junior medal performance, Kev on his Gen6 win (and an automatic place in November's Championship shootout), plus Steve on finishing top rookie...

   

That leaves another showdown between Pete and Andy in November's championship-decider on our Watkins Glen Nascar layout. A win for either gives them the title, although Oliver and Terry are not completely out of the picture...

   

And there are now only two places up for grabs in the Gen6 showdown - a winner-takes-all two minutes at the end of night. Gen6 winners get an automatic place, any vacant spots filled on Gen6 points scored. Nathan and Keith have those two spots as things stand...

   

Up-to-date Club and Rookie tables will follow once the July results have been added.

That's it for now. A very big thank you goes to everyone who came along on Wednesday for another excellent night of racing. Special thanks to the set-up and race control teams and to everyone who stayed behind to pack away - most of us will have been home by 10.

The next HO action is an AFX F1 race on Wednesday 4 September - we'll be using a new track design inspired by an Australian circuit, West Bend. Before that, we have two digital Wednesdays - a test night next week and a final Nascar & Legends double-header on the 21st.