Wainman Jr continues shale run as late drama hits final

Organiser: Startrax Starters: 33

When:

March 28

Where:

Belle Vue, Manchester

Frankie Wainman Jr chalked up his second final victory of the year at Belle Vue and his second heat and final double. He has won two of the three shale meetings held so far in 2016 and finished third in the one he didn’t win. However, he cut his wins a bit fine, taking the lead in both his heat and final on the final corner of each race.

In his heat he nudged Daniel van Spijker wide on the final turn and won the drag race to the line by a mere 0.370 seconds. In the finale he took advantage of a miscue by long-time race leader Bobby Griffin on the last corner to take the victory.

Griffin had taken over the lead of the final on lap four of the 20-lap event but as he went down the back straight for the final time several cars piled up in front of him. Faced with a blocked track and nowhere to go, Griffin ran into the rear of the pile-up. Wainman Jr was a bit further back and used all of his 29 years of experience to pick his way through the chaos to collect the laurels.

“I picked up a bit of damage on the last lap, but we will keep rebuilding the car. This car is just handling great at the moment, it has to be the best one I have ever built,” said Wainman Jr.

Dan Johnson followed Wainman Jr across the line to claim second. “That was a tough race, it wasn’t much fun to drive in, but if that is what the public want, we will keep delivering it to them,” Johnson said. “I had no idea what place I was in, or who was leading so I just kept going as hard as I could and hoped I would be up there.”

Wainman has competed in nine races (Heat, Final and Grand National) on shale in 2016, winning six of them and finishing third twice, so it is no surprise that he currently leads the standings by over 90 points, and almost double the amount scored by Johnson, who is second in the table.