Photo: Craig Toy leads the field
Changing weather conditions kept drivers on their toes at the penultimate round of the 2008 Counties Commercials Shifter Series held at Bay of Plenty’s Fagan’s Valley Raceway over the weekend. Saturday's practice and qualifying sessions were run as heavy rain crossed the North Island but by Sunday afternoon the worst of the weather was past and all classes managed to get at least one heat completed in dry conditions.
In the Formula 125 S class it was local drivers who qualified at the front of the field with recent Hamilton round winner Craig Toy heading off the sixteen strong field and Mark Swetman qualifying third.
The two BoP drivers in the KZ2 class had no such luck though with Daniel Dufty and Ryan Belworthy qualifying eleventh and thirteenth respectively. Auckland's Ryan Grant set a respectable time of 40.116 seconds around the rain-soaked track to lead the field into Sunday’s race program, half a second quicker than the next kart.
Grant went on to dominate the class taking heat one and three wins, then winning the Pre-final and Final as he liked with fellow Aucklander Graeme Smyth second.
Craig Toy also took control of the Formula 125 S class winning the first two heats, finishing second to fellow club mate Swetman in the third, then taking out the Pre-Final and a spectacular Final where he was chased for nearly all twenty five laps by Daniel Eggleton who finished just four tenths of a second behind.
Swetman had the story of the day though with a nasty looking accident occurring in the first heat when his kart came to a stop on the main straight and was hit from behind by another competitor. Both drivers were able to walk away unscathed though with full credit going to the safety equipment that all drivers wear. After making the necessary repairs to his kart Swetman went on to finish the day in fifth place overall.
The support club day class numbers were kept low by the undesirable weather conditions with the Cadet class again being the largest with ten entries. The class was won by Josh Leopold with Josh Adlam finishing second from Tokoroa’s Caleb Huston.
In the Junior Restricted class Michael Scott took the honours from Nik Pervan and Nadia Glover.
New club member, Ben Finemore who is usually at home in a 700 horsepower Sprint Car, enjoyed his debut in the Yamaha 100cc Light class with a second place finish from John van Bommel.
Meanwhile in Yamaha 100cc Heavy Lance Fisher won the day from Rotorua’s Paul Mabey and Todd Adlam.
2008 Counties Commercials Shifter Series Rnd 4 Fagan's Valley Raceway Te Puke Sat-Sun August 2-3
RESULTS
Formula 125 S: 1 Craig Toy, 2 Daniel Eggleton, 3 Rick Huston
KZ2: 1 Ryan Grant, 2 Graeme Smyth, 3 Niklaus Kiser.
Cadets: 1 Josh Leopold, 2 Josh Adlam, 3 Caleb Huston
Junior Restricted: 1 Michael Scott, 2 Nik Pervan, 3 Nadia glover
Junior Yamaha: 1 Hayden Pederson, 2 Corey Green
Yamaha Light: 1 John van Bommel, 2 Ben Finemore.
Yamaha Heavy: 1 Lance Fisher, 2 Paul Mabey, 3 Todd Adlam
125cc Rotax Max Light: 1 Mike Lilly, 2 Ian Lloyd, 3 Aaron Rodger
2008 Counties Commercials Shifter Series
Rnd 1 March 1-2 Taranaki
Rnd 2 May 17-18 Bay of Plenty
Rnd 3 June 28-29 Hawke's Bay
Rnd 4 July 9-20 Hamilton
Rnd 5 August 2-3 Bay of Plenty
Rnd 6 October 4-5 Auckland
Media: Fast Company / Phil Green; Photo: Andrew Bright 5th Aug 08
