McLean Wins North Island TQ Midget Champs

Media release: Monday 2nd March 2015
Thomas McLean Racing

North Island Three Quarter Midget Championship 2014/15
Western Springs Speedway - Auckland

McLean Wins North Island TQ Midget Champs

Whangarei driver Thomas McLean took out the North Island Three Quarter Midget Championship at Western Springs on Saturday evening.

The championship win at the iconic speedway circuit in Auckland was the cream on top of an impressive spate of results achieved already by McLean this year including back to back feature race wins at both Kihikihi and Baypark speedways.

At Western Springs on Saturday evening the TQ Midget driver demonstrated his prowess in the car with an incredible run in the all important feature race by adopting an astonishing line around the outside of Pinetree Corner where had found some speed in an earlier race.

The superior grip enabled McLean, who started in fourth place, to build up momentum with each lap creating what can only be described as slingshot passes on each of the drivers ahead of him to take the lead of the 20 lap race.

"I was on the outside at the start and we had some tough competition on the inside so I thought we would see how it goes on the top." said McLean about his choice of tactics.

"I knew it was going to be hard to get around the Bakers and Danny, I built up some momentum at the top and put my head down and went for it." he said.

After pulling a nice lead in the race a yellow flag midway through the race brought mcLean back into the firing line of those behind him.

The field was closed up as the other drivers lined up behind McLean in single file offering a new opportunity for those behind to mount a new challenge for the lead when the race went green again.

"When the yellow came I looked at the big screen and saw Ryan Baker behind me and was pretty nervous so I just put my head down to go as fast as I possibly can." he said.

McLean managed to hold on to the lead at the restart and continued to use his unique line through Pinetree to almost catapult himself ahead of the field and take the race win with a sizable and comfortable gap.

"We gave him a car which he could drive wherever he chose to drive it. I saw him taking a look at the outside of Pinetree in the previous race and that's where he decided to go." said race engineer Murray McLean.

The 17 year old driver was Rookie of the Year last season and won his first ever feature race this January at Kihikihi Speedway following that up with his second feature win immediately afterwards at Baypark Speedway the following month.

Also in February McLean contested the National Championship in Greymouth where he placed sixth overall out of a field of 47 drivers from around the country.

The sixth place was not from his placing in a single feature race as was the case last year but calculated from accumulated points in three 20 lap races.

Some on-track incidents prevented McLean making more challenges for the title however a strong drive by him resulted in his being passed by just four cars over the weekend.

McLean is back in the car at Western Springs Speedway this Saturday the 7th and again on the 21st of this month.

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