Congratulations to Peter Blundell who secured the 2011 Oval Track Legends Points Championship in dramatic fashion yesterday at Hednesford Hills Raceway.

The points battle has been quite close for most of the season and on arrival at Hednesford there were just 9 points between the top 2 – Daniel Holden and Peter Blundell, with Daniel holding the slight advantage points-wise.

9 points in Legends terms simply equates to the difference of one race place, but as points leader, Daniel had the handicap of having the start as a Superstar and Peter a mere Red Top!

Race one was dramatic enough as Blundell held a race position lead of 2 places in the latter stages with his fourth place, to Daniels sixth. Blundell is an out and out winner and instead of settling for a position that would see him take the overall lead in the points, he attempted an overtaking move to pass third place Derek Hales, which ultimately led to a non- finish. With another car dopping out a lap later, the final result elevated Daniel to third place and increased his lead to 164 points. Could that have been a move that Peter Blundell would rue for a long time?

For the record, Rookie of the Year, Thomas Sutton took his first ever official heat win in Legends, with Chris Pye 2nd and Daniel Holden 3rd.

Race two was less dramatic, but did see Peter Blundell do as much as he could by winning the race in fine style; Daniel was just 2.5 seconds back, but that equated to a sixth place which meant Peter had clawed back 80 points and knew exactly what he needed to do in the final – he was 74 points behind – he needed to win, with Daniel no higher than 8th place.

With Peter and Daniel probably the quickest two cars on the track all day, the probability of Daniel losing the title now was quite high – he didn’t need to win, just keep Peter in his sights and quite frankly the chance of Daniel finishing lower than 7th was again unthinkable.

The race started with Peter doing what he had to do – he had to win and he started that task as soon as the green flag dropped in a no-holds barred display of professional non contact racing. Approaching halfway, he was challenging Derek Hales for the lead and at that point, Daniel was still back in10th position, Blundell was technically leading the points chase at this stage. It wasn’t long however before Daniel elevated himself to a Championship points title winning place.

Peter took the lead with 10 laps to go and Daniel was then up to fourth – the title was his, until disaster struck – the 161 car sounded ‘off’ with seven to go – possibly a split manifold?

For a lap or two, it didnt seem to make a lot of difference and looked like he would still finish the race, but the problem was, he was losing places now and looked dangerously close to possibly falling too far behind, until he slowed dramatically and parked the car with a mere 3 laps to run.

The title was over for Daniel, which was confirmed as Peter took the chequered flag and the 300 points that secured the silver roof in one of the most dramatic races ever seen. With the red flags displayed to signify the end of the race, Peter drove directly to the parked car of Daniel Holden to commiserate with him – a very respectful gesture.
The points chase had been a great battle throughout the

year and involved several drivers along the way, with Darron Lewis and Branson Poyner up there for most of the season, but overall a superb conclusion in a days racing that just could not be scripted

Sincere commiserations to Daniel, who tells us that he experienced a throttle problem mid race, which could well have loosened a carburettor part, which ultimately may have been ingested into the engine and caused the terminal problem. He is quoted as saying to Legends Race Director Keith Whalley “Thats racing”, that maybe, but I am fairly sure he wouldn’t have been saying that at the side of the track!

Well done and many Congratulations of course to Peter Blundell and indeed to his lifetime supporter, sponsor, mentor and mechanic, father Graham – They both deserve the success!

Paul Gerrard
Race Director