Small Wins Kumho Sport Saloons Series

Small Wins Kumho Sport Saloons Series

Timaru's Chris Small is the South Island Kumho Sport Saloon Champion after managing to shake off his nearest rival.

The final round at Levels Raceway recently was the deciding round with Gary Duncan of Temuka leading Chris Small by one point heading into the weekend.

Small made his intentions clear right away setting a superfast lap time in his Mitsubishi EVO during qualifying, almost ¾ of a second clear of the next fastest competitor, Ivan McAuley. Matt Dunn of Timaru was third with series leader Duncan qualifying fourth.

Small started race one from the front and led all the way but a hard charging Duncan raced through from fourth to finish second and chased him till the end signalling that he was not going to give up without a fight, finishing less than one and ½ seconds behind Small at the line. A close battle for third went on all race between Ivan McAuley and Matt Dunn with McAuley finishing just ahead of Dunn after the two nearly came together in the final corners.

The second race was a reverse grid, delayed start race, with Brodie Findlay’s Honda starting from pole position with Noel Parish of Motueka and Grant Waters of Timaru on the same flag drop. Behind them was the group of Stan Moore, Matt Edgar and Matt Dunn with McAuley, Duncan and Small all starting together on the third and final flag drop.

Small managed to come through the field to finish second behind Matt Edgar with Dunn third although contact at the hairpin on the last lap could have severely affected his chances. Duncan managed to come through from the back to fourth just a few seconds behind.

After the first two races Small had gone from a 1 point deficit to a 10 point lead in the series, meaning all that was needed to clinch the title was a finish in the last race.

The final race was a full reverse grid handicap race with the field split into 5 groups spread over 50 seconds. Findlay was first away with Parish and Waters giving chase in the next group. Eventual race winner Stan Moore in his red EVO was next up 15 seconds behind. The next group was a group of four with the Corollas’ of Dunn and Edgar lined up in front of the EVO’s of Duncan and McAuley. Chris Small was due to start a further 5 seconds back in a group of his own, but a jumped start saw him leave the line the same time as the rest of the field and he incurred a time penalty for his trouble.

Stan Moore was the race 3 winner with Noel Parish and Matt Edgar in the next two positions.
Gary Duncan finished sixth two positions ahead of Chris Small but it was not enough to close the point gap leaving Small to finish the race eighth, good enough to take the overall Championship.

Duncan was not left in the cold though with enough points in the last race to take the handicap Championship for race 3 at each round by 11 points from Grant Waters.
The class now heads into the off season with the next season expected to start later in the year around October.

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