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Oliver and Smith take their fight down to the wire - Mäkinen dominates Division 2

Oliver and Smith take their fight down to the wire - Mäkinen dominates Division 2

25. March 2017There wasn’t the slightest hint of the notorious “English weather” on the first day of the first round of the British Truck Racing Championship at Brands Hatch. Quite contrariwise, the sky shone down kindly from a crystal clear sky, and you could actually bask in its warm rays in the paddock. Out on the circuit it was different – the icy winds would chill you to the bone.
Free practice and qualifying yesterday ended in disaster for Ryan Smith, the defending champion in the premier Class A/ Division One. Shortly after he first went out his MAN busted a spring, which caused major damage to the steering gear, pitching the chubby champ off the track, where he had to stay put for an age till his truck could be recovered. The MAN was out of sorts in qualifying as well, allowing Stuart Oliver, his top presumptive title contender, to grab pole for today’s race in his Volvo. The best grid slot Smith could manage was on the penultimate row.
Oliver’s start today was as confident as his qualifying yesterday was convincing; he pulled away from the rest of the field strongly and looked headed for an emphatic victory and a quiet afternoon to savour it. But Smith, following his qualifying debacle, soon threatened to crash in on the scene. With monomaniacal determination the MAN pilot ploughed mercilessly through the entire field ahead of him and, two-thirds into the race, was just four seconds behind the leader and closing in quickly. Oliver had no choice but to push it, and though Smith was on the absolute limit on the final lap, his 58.844s registering as the quickest of the race, seven-tenths was the closest he could get up behind the 10-times British champion at the flag.
Another 10 seconds further off, a quintet of Luke Taylor, Mat Summerfield, David Jenkins, Shane Brereton, and Ray Coleman crossed the line in a clot, Taylor’s time securing him third place and Jenkins collecting a five-second penalty for “exceeding track limits” that dropped him to seventh in the classification.
The lower-performance trucks in Class B/Division Two featured in two races today (out of four in all). The first was a clear-cut drag to the flag for Mika Mäkinen, who’s lost none of his popularity among the fans from his time in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. He’d been marginally outqualified by Sisu colleague Tony Smith, who held the lead at the start but was powerless against the Finn’s smarts. On the second lap Mäkinen was in front and putting as much daylight between himself and the rest of the field – as only someone as experienced as he could; at the flag he was a massive 13 seconds ahead.
Twenty seconds later the trio of Renault pilot Andrew Lovenbury, defending champ Adam Bint (Volvo White Aerodyne), and John Bowler (Foden) crossed the line in their scrap for third place. Lovenbury subsequently had 10 seconds added to his elapsed time because of a false start, dropping him to fifth place and handing third to Bint.
The trucks lined up on the grid for the second race in reverse order of their finishing positions in the first. Halfway through, a stationary truck in a manifestly dangerous spot (it had lost a wheel) compelled the jury to stop the race. Without this exception, Mäkinen would easily have made it two on the trot. He’d made up 11 places over the space of only five laps, and was now nine seconds behind leader John Powell (Ford). The Finn and his Sisu were lapping like one well-oiled machine, and when the race was stopped two laps later, Mäkinen was only four seconds behind the leader with eight laps still to go.
Powell was thus declared the winner, and Lovenbury, who’d been denied a podium place in the earlier race because of his false start, finished third.

Impressions:

Oliver and Smith take their fight down to the wire - Mäkinen dominates Division 2
Oliver and Smith take their fight down to the wire - Mäkinen dominates Division 2
Oliver and Smith take their fight down to the wire - Mäkinen dominates Division 2