Lawlor wins top Offroad Racing title in smallest race car

LAWLOR WINS TOP OFFROAD RACING TITLE IN SMALLEST RACE CAR
• Lawlor puts on mighty drive to be first ever class 10 champion
• Tiny but potent Edge Barracuda Suzuki makes history
• Action and incident-packed weekend of racing

Tapanui's Hamish Lawlor, driving his tiny Edge Barracuda Suzuki class 10 car, has won the 2012 Mickey Thompson New Zealand offroad racing championship. His victory came in two days of wheel-to-wheel race action durign Labour Weekend on a rolling farm course at Crownethorpe in the Hawkes Bay.

In a first day of racing punctuated by spectacular rollovers for some of the top competitors, Lawlor kept his head and raced to a clean sweep of class wins. Clive Thornton, Richard Crabb, Blain Nicholls, North Island champion Jason Delahunty and Clim Lammers were among those to fall foul of the technically demanding course on the Saturday, though all were able to restart after their cars were recovered from the course.

Though many had expected bigger, more sophisticated race machinery to grab the title, at the end of the first day Lawlor was one of four holding maximum points from the short course racing. With the championship wide open, the title would be decided in the second day's 172 km endurance race.

In the qualifying sprint to decide grid positions, Lawlor grabbed pole to share the front row of the grid with three unlimited-class cars: Trevor Cooper, Tony McCall and former Hawkes Bay racer Vince Harvey, who is now Christchurch based.

When the race started, the greater torque of the bigger cars won out, Tony McCall grabbing the lead after just three corners and driving away from the field. Trevor Cooper had a gear selection problem that dropped him to last place, while Vince Harvey found himself battling with Lawlor, Clim Lammers, Malcolm Langley and Wayne Moriarty – the latter in the grip of a severe bout of food poisoning.

Lawlor's Barracuda is the smallest car in the championship, but with a potent 1.3 litre Suzuki Hayabusa engine it gives away little to the bigger cars on a challenging farm course. He stayed with the leaders as the first lap continued, and engaged in a developing battle for the remaining podium placings with Lammers, Harvey and Moriarty.

Multiple national champion Tony McCall led for much of the event in his all-new BSL Terra Chev, but went out in the later half of the race when his fuel pump failed.

Whangarei racer Clim Lammers and Christchurch's Vince Harvey then duelled for the lead, but Lammers fell back in the closing laps when his engine began to smoke badly. Lawlor, meanwhile, was third and waiting to pounce. He stepped up to second and followed Harvey home to maximise his points tally and secure the championship, his first ever.

Lawlor is a relative newcomer to the sport, and said afterward he knew "next to nothing" about the sport four years ago.

"If you'd said to me then that I'd have my hands on the big trophy this weekend I would have said you were mad, but it's been a great season and a fantastic weekend of racing on what has to be the best farm course I've ever driven," he said.

2012 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship top ten:

1070 Hamish Lawlor
312 Wayne Moriarty
580 Alistair Manning
666 Roger McKay
193 Malcolm Langley
284 Michael Hay
991 Mike Konings
115 Clim Lammers
730 Taine Carrington
C27 Ben Howard

2012 Mickey Thompson New Zealand Offroad Racing Championship class winners:
Class 1 national champion Malcolm Langley
Class 2 national champion Mike Hay
Class 3 national champion Wayne Moriarty
Class 4 national champion Darrin Thomason
Class 5 national champion Alistair Manning
Class 6 national champion Roger McKay
Class 7 national champion Taine Carrington
Class 8 national champion Martin van der Wal
Class 9 national champion Mike Konings
Class 10 national champion Hamish Lawlor
Challenger VW national champion Ben Howard

Kiwitrucks:
M class national champion Ollie McCall
J class national champion Fergus Crabb