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Vodafone DMAX Winter Series Round 2 – January 17th 2010 – Milton Keynes

Vodafone DMAX Winter Series Round 2 – January 17^th 2010 – Milton Keynes

Due to the recent adverse weather condition, round 2 of the series had to be put back a week which meant some of the usual suspects could make the race. This didn’t mean however that the racing was any less competitive.

After a mildly moist qualifying session, Chris Hackworth and James Pratt locked out the front row for the lights while Michael Ballinger and Chris Carter did the same for the heavies. The track was drying very slowly and conditions and grip levels were changing from lap to lap which lead to some eventful moments in the two heats. As it was, the lights were headed into the pre-final with Chris and James followed by Pete Harris at the sharp end and the heavies were represented by Chris Carter, Austen Metcalf and Damien Hudes.

Chris and James put on an absolutely stunning show in the pre-final; never more than 3 kart lengths in it for the whole race, it came down to the final corner of the final lap to decide a winner. The two came together through turn 9 and were side-by-side through turn 10 and all the way into the last bend. The crowd held their collective breath as both drivers gave only as much room as was necessary as they sped up to the line. As they crossed the finish side-by-side, no one could separate them, in fact the computerised timing system showed a gap of +0.00.00 but Chris’ name clocked up first, so it must have been down to thousandths of a second difference. It was truly an amazing finish to the first final.

 Further back, Austen Metcalf had a lonely race as his arch-rival Chris Carter had been suffering from a rib injury all day and while he started very well, the pain became less bearable as the race progressed and he fell back into the clutches of Michael Ballinger who pipped him for 2^nd.

The 12 lap grand final got underway with the track drying considerably, but it was still very slippy in places. Sadly, we couldn’t match the excitement of the pre-final as Chris Hackworth made the most of his pole position to race away into a lead he was never to surrender. Behind him though, Callum Souter made super progress up through the field and had another ding-dong battle with James Pratt for 2^nd. Again it went down to the final few corners and again James got pipped this time by Callum by just 7/10ths. A great recovery drive from Callum. Speaking of recovery drives, behind the lonely heavyweight leader Austen, Railer Cantrell fought his way up from 13^th on the grid to finish 5^th overall and 2^nd in the heavies. Chris Carter managed to secure another podium place despite his obviously painful injury.

We look forward to seeing you at the 3^rd and final round at Lydd on the 31^st of January.