26 Oct 2010

Wood's Battle, Rod's War

 

If a round win in the Porsche 944 Challenge wasn’t enough for John Wood, the Holden HQ round win would’ve been plenty as he became the first man in 2010 to knock Rodney Raatjes from his throne. But not before Raatjes walked away from Round 4 at Philip Island the 2010 champion.

Wood started his weekend on the slow side with eight in qualifying but from then on things only went up for the HQ veteran. As soon as Race 1 got underway, Wood found himself in the battle for the lead along with Raatjes and Jordan Symes, a battle that would last the length of the weekend. The trio all took turns in leading the races, with Raatjes taking the early initiative in Race 1. Then as the final two races came along on Sunday, Wood’s experience came to the surface as led when it counted to take the wins, and the weekend in style.

Carl McHenry took a well-deserved second for the weekend, as the Tiger Tune pilot was more a man waiting for his opportunity. During Race 3, McHenry was able to take advantage of an incident involving Raatjes and Symes to jump into second position for the race and the weekend. McHenry finished second in the 2010 championship.

After winning the opening race on Saturday, it looked as though it would be another cakewalk for Raatjes. But after finishing Race 2 in third, Raatjes was in a winning position on the last lap of Race 3 until Jordan Symes pulled an ambitious move on the inside heading into MG, causing contact between the two. Raatjes was able to recover for third and Symes for fourth but third was still more than enough to hand ‘Rocket Rod’ the 2010 championship by a massive 65 points.

Bob Wright made a welcome return to the category and had a solid weekend to finish fifth overall. Wright’s pace wasn’t good enough to see him challenge the fast four at the front, but he did keep delivering the Top 5 finishes across the weekend, putting him well ahead of the regular Victorian HQ runners.

The Division 2 title went to Grant Atwell, with 12th place in Race 3 more than enough to secure the Division 2 bragging rights. Atwell was running as high as eighth in Race 2, but the likes of Tim Yates and David Tessari managed to find their way past in the final race to relegate Atwell to 12th for the weekend.

Rod Raatjes won the 2010 title on the weekend, while Grant Aatwell took out the second division. Bob Wright finished fifth on his comeback weekend.