Saturday in Most Part 3 - Breakthrough for Ryan Smith

03. September 2016Most - At the trucks rolled onto the start grid for the second race, the drivers simply went according to the finishing order in the prior race, there being still no word on the official classification.
While it was widely speculated that the repeated impacts by Lacko against the MAN of Hahn ahead of him were under investigation, it apparently had already been decided that nothing would change in the results after race control had issued Lacko a warning.
The delay owed more to a discussion about Janiec, who’d been awarded a 30 second penalty the Lion team had protested.
So now it was Lenz on pole with Smith beside him. The young German took the lead going into the first corner and held it for six full laps.
All this time Smith hung onto his rear crash guard, and lurking behind the Englishman was the rat pack of Reinert, Halm, Lacko, Kiss, and Hahn. The pressure on Lenz was enormous.
The MAN pilot was forced into an error shortly before the hairpin at the far end of the circuit, while Smith, Reinert, and Halm swept past. One lap later he was overtaken by Hahn, and then on the penultimate by Kiss, Forman, and Lohr.
But even 9th place, and the two points that go with it, weren’t to be Lenz’s. At the end of the race he was given a 30 second penalty for overtaking in a yellow-flag zone, tossing him back to 12th.
Out at the front, meanwhile, Smith was set on by Reinert. On the final lap there was contact between the two trucks, and the German came out ahead. Shortly before the finish Reinert allowed Smith pass him to take the win by a little over a tenth of a second. The Reinert Racing team’s explanation for this gesture was that, by principle, its principal didn’t want to win as a result of any manoeuvre that involved contact.
In the event, it was enough for the “returnee” – he’d pulled out of the round in Hungary owing to a business commitment – to get onto the podium, together with his Reinert Racing protégée Steffi Halm. The rapidly rising German star salvaged 3rd place by four-thousandths from Lacko.
Hahn in 5th was followed home by Kiss, Forman, Lohr, and Kursim.
Dutch Scania driver Erwin Kleinnagelvoort could rejoice in a 10th-place finish and the single point it brings.
Janiec, on the other hand, had misfortune riding along unwanted on his fifth wheel, as it were. The same track lmit that caught Kiss out in the earlier race proved to be the Frenchman’s undoing this time. The drive-through penalty he was given dropped him to 11th.
Reinert Adventure (Hahn / Reinert) was the top team, ahead of Buggyra International (Lacko / Forman) and WOW! Women On Wheels (Lohr / Halm).
Hahn now leads the championship standings with 269 points, seven more than Lacko. Kiss in third has 150, followed by Reinert and Janiec (both 145), then Halm (124).

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