21 Cars rolled out of the garages of Blackwood to take to the track of the 15 minutes of frought qualifying. After the 15 minutes it was the Spdo car of Pikkarainen who produced a flawless lap to take pole from the Ministry of Speed car of Krzyżanowski. In the dying seconds of qualifying Daszkiewicz took second place from the Ministry of speed car with a do or die last lap.
At the start Pikkarainen dropped to third straight away with the XR2 car being slow of the line, with Daszkiewicz taking the lead that he would not relinquish throughout the race. Going into the first corner, Krzyżanowski placed his car up the inside of the slow Pikkarainen: only for Pikkarainen to keep his foot in on the outside and have the inside of Krzyżanowski for the second corner. As they went into the second corner, with Daszkiewicz already clear, Krzyżanowski and Pikkarainen made slight contact which resulted in Pikkarainen losing a place to de Jong and Krzyżanowski falling right down the field. Further back, Đaković , who had made a good start from 7th made contact with Gasiunas which resulted in Đaković spining wildly infront of the oncoming pack and was collected with heavy impact by Anttonen who pushed the 3id car of Đaković into the oncoming Conquest car of Makalowski, ending all three racers' chances of finishing high up.
Meanwhile back up the front the Ministry of Speed car of Gasiunas started to challange spdo man Pikkarainen, who was still trying to recover from a back start from pole position, for thrid. However, coming onto the back straight Gasiunas ran slightly wide which allowed the also slowly starting Xcite car of Schwer to get alongside and up the inside going into the final sector of the first lap. De Jong, having started from the mid-field now set about closing the 1.87 second gap to Daszkeiwicz. During the next 5 laps, Daszkeiwicz increased his lead on My3id de Jong, the lead going out as far as 3.23 seconds.
But now de Jong launched his attack, setting fast laps and splits, lap after lap in an attempt to cut the gap down to the leading Daszkeiwicz. However, he was taking Pikkarainen with him and on lap 15 Pikkarainen got too close for comfort. He stuck the rear bumped of de Jong, forcing de Jong to drive slightly defensivly for a lap. This enabled Daszkiewicz to stretch his lead even further, and put the win beyong doubt. On lap 17, de Jong made excellent use of the backmarkers to be rid of Pikkarainen once and for all. This allowed de Jong to make a superb last gasp attempt to force the leader into making a mistake that may cause him to run with of even flip with the unique high curbs of Blackwood Raceway. De Jong reeled off a series of quick laps to cut Daszkiewicz's lead down to a mere 0.82 seconds going across the line. With Daszkiewicz the Jubilant winner. An excellent fight back from Krzyżanowski from nearly last place at the end of the first lap saw him cross the line in 8th place. Đaković crossed the line with a damaged car with 14th place. Pikkarainen took fastest lap with a 1.11.13, with the XR2. Schwer finished 4th 9.67 seconds adrift from the leader with Tomczyk rounding off the top 5 with the second fastest time of the race, a 1.11.18. Impressivly the winners team mate, Makalowski after tangling with Đaković on the first lap, and sustaining slight damage to the suspension, was able to claw his way back up to the top 10.
The top 3 showed excellent pace throughout the race, always pushing each other hard, but unfortunatly they were not quite close enough to challenge each other for the places. Congratulations to M. "gargus" Daszkiewicz, the 2010 LFS Open Champion.
J.Peace - Saturday, 5. June 2010