[Gareth]

A Final

   

Ollie (red) was out of the title fight but he had a golden opportunity to win the race and be a disruptor.  Terry in blue, Andy in yellow and Pete in white all had the prospect of winning the championship but Terry’s chances were a bit slimmer than the other two.  

If he won the race with Ollie in 2nd then he would be champion outright and if he won the race with Andy in 2nd then he would win on countback thanks to a 2nd place in round 1 being better than Andy’s other 2 scores.  Winning with Pete in 2nd place would still give Pete the title.  

Andy meanwhile needed to outscore Pete by at least 10 points and beat Terry.  

Clear as mud!  Let’s get racing.

All 4 cars left the line together and all were running very fast indeed.  Terry passed Pete to take the lead for a few laps before Ollie charged back in front but then disaster struck as both Ollie and Andy crashed on lap 11.  Pete was now back in the lead with Terry in 2nd.  Ollie’s race swiftly unravelled as he hit the floor and lost a huge amount of time on lap 14.  Then it was Terry who fell off on lap 20.  This was turning into a bit of a scrappy race by these guys' standards.  Except for one driver…and he had just won the B Final.  

 Andy had stabilised from that early off and was driving fast consistent laps.  So too was Ollie but that big off had left him out of the running.  A late off by Terry on lap 35 was enough to allow Andy to sneak through back into 2nd but still left him behind Pete, the one man who was ahead of him in the championship.  

   

We often see Pete driving insanely fast laps but at the expense of the odd crash.  This race he was still driving insanely fast laps but he wasn’t crashing.  2.1 second laps around the longest lane doesn’t seem possible but he was doing it and when the power cut at the end of two minutes we saw something new for the evening; a 50.85 lap run.  Absolutely incredible and if there was any doubt that Pete is the best driver in the club right now, that is over.  This was a champions drive and the reward was the Nascar championship.  

   

Behind him Andy was fairly happy with his 2nd place, Terry was a bit downhearted with his 3rd and Ollie was wondering if I’d cursed him with my own shoddy driving skills!  Sorry mate!