| Fri, Jul 30 5:40AM (NZ) |
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This website is now dedicated to covering the Black Bullets. Current Black Bullets news is now provided on iSportz » with past news archived here for your continued reference.
After an exciting weekend of racing Matt "Phantom" Lockwood won Allied Petroleum's Mainland Trophy for the top finisher in the 3 South Island rounds of the 2008 ENZED V8 Ute Series. He also extended his overall lead in the series after 4 rounds by finishing second to Caine "Ginger Ninja" Lobb. This was Lobb's first round win after a series of unfortunate incidents in previous rounds.
Qualifying, which carries full points, turned out to be a disaster for Lockwood. Transponder failures meant that the lap times had to be recorded manually. Lockwood was credited with a lap time that was slower than times recorded by the team but was nevertheless fast enough to put him into 2nd place behind Lobb. These times were confirmed by the announcer during qualifying but once it was all over Lockwood's time was changed and he was moved down to 6th place, a major and significant reshuffle that officials would not change.
The first marble draw race had Lobb on pole, Dayne " Dangerous" Running beside him, with Lockwood and Peter "Kaos" Ward behind them. Running got a good start but ultimately Lobb and Lockwood got past him and drew away from the rest of the field. Simon "Jnr Burner" Bernie finished in 4th position after starting at the back of the grid to keep in touch on the points table. Lockwood set a new lap record which went some way to countering the qualifying time he was given.
The second race had Bernie on pole where he was expected to take out the win as his major competitors were now starting at the rear of the field. However it was Lockwood who made the best of the start with a blinding run up the outside to the first corner. Lockwood moved from 14th to 4th by the end of this corner and once again had a close tussle with Lobb before finishing 2nd to Bernie who had cleared out from other utes.
The start positions for the third race were based on points to date and the order was Lobb, Lockwood, Bernie and Mack "Bomba" Peach in 4th position. Lobb was clearly in control on this track and took the race win and in doing so, broke Lockwood's lap record set the previous day. However Bernie and Lockwood had the sort of race that spectators watching Ute racing love to see. They were on each others bumpers for virtually the whole race. Initially Lockwood led Bernie but after an incident at the hairpin where Bernie pushed Lockwood off the track and onto the grass, Bernie took the lead. However later in the race, after a second incident at the hairpin Lockwood out braked Bernie and regained his second position.
So, after what was arguably the most exciting ENZED V8 Ute race meeting to date, Lobb came away with a convincing round win at a track he knows so well, Lockwood took the Mainland trophy north and extended his points lead for the NZ title and Bernie kept in touch with the points leader in this hotly contested series.
Manfield should be a cracker in 2 weeks time!
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