Bethune exclusion leaves Allan with GR86 race victory and championship lead

A fine drive in the feature race at the first round of the Bridgestone GR86 Championship looked to have given Josh Bethune and the Right Karts by M2 Competition team a debut victory, but the wrong choice of racewear meant he was excluded by officials.

This handed Hugo Allan his first win for the weekend and gave him a valuable early points lead in the championship.

With the grid for the 12 lap feature determined by fastest laps in the first and second races, Bethune had a front row start alongside pole sitter and race one winner Hayden Bakkerus. At the lights neither made the perfect getaway, but Bethune’s was the better one and the two sat side-by-side until the exit of the second turn when Josh surged ahead.

He built up a significant lead in almost no time at all, and when Allan passed Bakkerus late on and slowed the chasing pack, Bethune extended his lead from under a second to an unassailable two and a half second margin. It was an impressive drive, but a post-race check by race officials determined part of his race clothing wasn’t legal and he was excluded from the results.

Allan took his third runner-up spot of the weekend on the road, and pretty quickly it became clear that was going to be upgraded to a win.

“It’s a great weekend for myself and the team and we’ve got some time now before the second round and we’ll work even harder to find a little extra speed and turn that into race wins,” he said afterwards.

Bakkerus ended his impressive weekend with another trip to the podium in what turned out to be second. He was quick but had to focus on the cars behind him rather than try and match Bethune’s blinding pace at the front. Allan, however, was the only one to make it past in what turned out to be a race winning overtake at the daunting turn nine.

Cooper Barnes showed why he is highly rated as a championship contender despite some bad luck over the weekend. His outright pace qualified him well for the feature race and he made the most of it, coming home to take his best result of the weekend in third.

Arthur Broughan was another to make the most of his grid slot and he too recorded his best result of the weekend in fourth. Alice Buckley tried her best to get past him in the latter stages but had to settle for fifth.

Cormac Murphy finished up with a personal best for the weekend with a fine drive to sixth, while race two winner Emerson Vincent passed a staunch Justin Allen on lap six to cross the line seventh but he picked up a post-race penalty which dropped him down the order – though he was still top Rookie for the weekend. That left Allen seventh, just a car length or two ahead of Mason Potter, while John Penny took ninth and the Master class honours for the round. Masters rival Simon Hunter was only just behind him in tenth for his best result on his first weekend in the championship.

The hard luck story of the race was undoubtedly Chris White. Fast all weekend, Chris had made a great start from the second row and had held third place early on, but a late challenge on Bakkerus damaged a wheel rim significantly enough to send him quickly to the back of the field. He did well to take the chequered flag. Not too far behind on the bad luck was Zach Blincoe, a top five runner all weekend who was in the leading pack before a last lap retirement after another impressive race.

A long break for Christmas and New Year will give all the teams time to regroup and the drivers an opportunity to see where they can improve before the championship reassembles for the second round on the international layout at Hampton Downs over the weekend of January 17-19. The early contenders have shown their pace, but the field on the opening weekend was close enough to guarantee the race to wins and championship glory remains completely unpredictable.