Rain mars opening at Levels Raceway

Press, 23 October 1989, Page 21

Rain mars opening at Levels Raceway

Persistent rain marred racing at the opening round of the Levels Raceway’s season yesterday.

The most exciting racing of the day came in the meeting’s opening event, for Formula Fords. Blair Smith (Van Diemen RFBS) snatched the lead on a streaming wet track, closely followed by Nigel Barclay (Van Diemen RF81) and Grant Milligan (Van Diemen RF88). Smith led until the last lap, when Barclay forced through at the end of the short front straight only to go off-course later that same lap, allowing Smith back into the lead.

On the run up to the finish line Smith spun allowing Deane McKechie, who had driven a sensible race in fourth for most of the way, to grab the win ahead of a recovering Smith and Milligan.

Barclay made no mistake in the second event, but prospects of a good race were spoilt when Smith and McKechie had a coming together at the end of the short front straight. This allowed Barclay to clear out winning easily from Phil Walker and John Douglas.

Peter Black made a successful return to the Mini 7 class, winning the opening heat of the Agip Oils series in a borrowed car. Jeff Brook challenged for the lead half way through the race but fell back with water in the electrics and this enabled the championship leader, John Hamilton, to forge through to second position ahead of Adam Collins. In the second heat Hamilton lead all the way from the front of the grid, but the highlight of the race was Milton Souster’s climb to second position, demoting Dean Milligan on the penultimate lap. Milligan was further demoted on the last lap by Brook on his climb through the field.

In the last race for the class Souster gained a welldeserved win after Brook had shadowed him throughout the race. Brook in fact did manage to gain a brief lead once but he was quickly passed again by the determined Souster. Further back Collins just held off Wayne Timms in another close battle.

A combination of tyres suitable for the conditions and years of driving experience allowed Jim Little to run away in both scratch races for the Ray Parke Autos Pre 65 class. Although Doug Harvey led for half the opening lap in his Anglia, Little was soon into the lead and pulled away to finish over 14 seconds clear. Harvey, in turn, was never troubled by Gary Cooper’s similar Anglia on his way to second place. Paul Roffey’s Chevrolet was most unsuited to the conditions but he held down second place for the opening lap of the second heat. Little was once again able to go well clear and, after they had disposed of Roffey, Harvey and Wayne Austin produced some close dicing over second place until an offcourse moment by Austin enabled Harvey to edge slightly clear of his opponent.

The first heat of the Street saloon class featured some close racing between Dave Samson (Viva Hemi), Peter Booth (Starlet) and Robert Toshach (Lotus 7). After Booth had fought past Toshach on lap three he applied the pressure to Samson but the Christchurch driver was equal to the task and had enough power to just keep Booth at bay. Toshach meanwhile fell back to fourth behind Bruce Henderson’s Mazda after a spin which spoilt an otherwise fine drive.

After the second race had been stopped because of heavy rain, Booth led all the way from the staggered restart holding off Samson.