BOWEN BAGS BRACE OF ALDERSHOT HOT ROD WINS
After knocking on the door of some decent results for a while now, Lance Bowen marked his return to National Hot Rod World Series racing with an emphatic heat and final double as the Nationals revisited Spedeworth’s spiritual home for the final time this year.
Another driver with very few qualifying points under his belt prior to Sunday’s outing, Chris Lehec, made off with the other heat win.
The opening race kicked off with young Ashley Shaw leading the way while there were some serious shenanigans at the other end of the field where Hayden Ballard, Carl WallerBarrett and Billy Wood had a coming together with consequences. Wood’s borrowed Dave Drew car (Wood’s own got wrecked in Northern Ireland the previous weekend) was out with suspension damage, CW-B went spinning and Ballard got disqualified for causing it all.
Back at the sharp end Shaw continued to lead until Andy Lane and Bowen managed to forge on through. Lane’s lead was to be short-lived though, gearbox failure putting him out after another lap, gifting the lead and win to Bowen. As Shaw fell back a mighty scrap developed for the places. It was Mark Shelper who eventually claimed second ahead of Paul Wright who’d made notable progress throughout.
Brett Collison set the early pace in heat two, enjoying a few laps out front before losing out to Lehec as he led a whole gang of others past the erstwhile leader.
By mid-distance Lehec had Bowen and Shelper hounding him around with pretty much the entire field latching onto this battle as they neared the finish. One of them was Waller-Barrett, clearly looking for a decent result after his firstheat calamity. As so often seems to be the case, the CW-B Tigra came on with a bang in the closing stages.
The reigning points champion took to the outside to spectacularly pass car after car and only just failed to snatch the win by a matter of inches from Lehec at the line.
The rest of those at the front of the final grid did well to avoid a monster pile-up when Waller-Barrett broke something leaving the line and almost stopped in midpack. Luckily everyone avoided him, as Bowen grabbed the lead with both hands and immediately began to draw clear of the field.
Behind him, Shelper had installed himself firmly in second spot. It wasn’t long before he had Perry Cooke, Jason Kew, Wright and Chris Aldridge in line astern behind him. Despite a good deal of jockeying for position, ultimately none of them were able to break the stalemate while Bowen simply continued getting further and further up the road.
The leader was more than half a lap to the good by flag fall with the others still in the order they’d adopted soon after the start.
Results
Heat one: 1 Lance Bowen (Vauxhall Tigra); 2 Mark Shelper (Peugeot 206cc); 3 Paul Wright (Vauxhall Tigra); 4 Perry Cooke (Vauxhall Tigra); 5 Jason Kew (Ginetta G40R); 6 Aaron Dew (Ginetta G40R); 7 Chris Aldridge (Vauxhall Tigra); 8 Chris Lehec (Vauxhall Tigra). Heat two: 1 Lehec; 2 Carl Waller-Barrett (Vauxhall Tigra); 3 Bowen; 4 Shelper; 5 Kew; 6 Cooke; 7 Hayden Ballard (Vauxhall Tigra); 8 Dick Hillard (Vauxhall Tigra). Final: 1 Bowen; 2 Shelper; 3 Cooke; 4 Kew; 5 Wright; 6 Aldridge; 7 Lehec; 8 Dew; 9 Andy Lane (Ginetta G40R); 10 Billy Wood (Vauxhall Tigra). Provisional points: 1 Dew 186; 2 Cooke 179; 3 Aldridge 177; 4 Wright 158; 5 Chris Haird 157; 6 Kew 152.