Black storms to another Legends title with race-two victory
Stewart Black capped off a sensational season of Scottish Legends Cars racing by clinching his second successive title with a double podium in the final round of the year at Knockhill last weekend.
With a total of 600 points on offer from the three races, just 185 split
Black and his nearest rival, three-time Legends champion Ben Mason, with Ryan Mcleish making it a three-way scrap for the title at the Fife circuit.
Mcleish did nearly everything he could by winning the first and third races, but Black’s victory in the second heat was enough to be crowned one race early. “It’s been a hard old slog this season,” said a relieved Black post-race. “I’ve had so much fun racing Ryan and Ben; it’s been really hard racing all year but always fair.”
The opening heat was played out on a drying track after morning rain, with Mcleish beating Black to victory while Mason was third. An off at Clark for Stuart Robertson caused a late safety car, with Mcleish and Black both getting the better of early leader Mason, whose Chevy Sedan finished the race covered in oil after a bolt broke on his cam cover.
Black started second for heat two and held a commanding lead from start to finish as the first drops of rain began to hit the circuit. With the title decided, Black was then a somewhat leisurely eighth in a wet final, two places behind Mason, who recovered from an apparent misfire as Mcleish romped to victory by nearly seven seconds from Ben Mcneice.
Just like in the Legends, consistency reigns supreme in the quest for Scottish Mini Cooper Cup honours. One driver who knows this all too well is Michael Weddell, who made it back-to-back titles with a trio of podiums.
Following a precautionary gearbox change after an oil leak in testing,
Weddell planned a safety-first approach and extended his margin over Chad Little to 16 points with second to Neil Hose in the first encounter. Little closed the gap marginally by finishing runner-up to Hose in race two, but Weddell did enough with third and then second in the Cooper-only final race, won by Daniel Patterson.
Jamie Blake won the first two races overall and picked up the Cooper S championship after beating Andrew Lamont each time.
Esports graduate Sam Corson was
crowned Scottish C1 Cup champion after on-the-road race-one winner James Hitchen was disqualified for a technical infringement. Corson outscored his nearest rival Finlay Brunton in the opener, finishing two places ahead of the him in seventh, while Hitchen originally remained in the mix just 15 points adrift.
Post-race scrutineering then discovered irregularities with Hitchen’s C1 and left Corson crowned before the finale, in which he finished second to 2021 champion Ross Dunn.
Liam Mcgill beat Steven Gray in a winner-takes-all pair of races to secure the Fiesta ST Cup title. They have been the dominant forces all season, and Mcgill edged his fierce rival in both wet and dry encounters, despite a suspension failure in qualifying.
In the Scottish Classics, John Kinmond’s Rover was denied a double victory after a front anti-roll bar failure forced him out of race two, leaving Kenneth Brown to take the win in his TVR Griffith, with the already crowned Charlie Cope (VW Golf) second.