Broughan wins by a whisker in GR86 final

Arthur Broughan won his second race of the weekend at Hampton Downs, taking the flag first from pole position to beat reigning champion Hugo Allan around 12 laps of the international 4km circuit.

Allan gave the youngster a good run for his money – and put him under immense pressure in the final two laps – but couldn’t find a way past, despite spending the majority of the race mere tenths of a second behind.

The two crossed the line side by side, but Broughan managed to hang on and won by two hundredths of a second on the drag race up to the line. Josh Bethune fought his way to third, but could make no impression on the leaders.

Winner Broughan was delighted with his weekend. “That was pretty unreal, but I managed to get the run up the hill and take the win,” said Arthur afterwards. “I don’t think I’ve ever driven that hard in my life, but it’s pretty cool to take two wins in spite of a poor second race.”

Starting on pole position, Saturday race winner Broughan got away well but entered turn one alongside Allan and Bethune. It was Arthur who emerged in front, with Bethune making a great start to sit just behind.

A couple of corners later Josh had been demoted a couple of places by champion Hugo Allan and Chris White. Race 2 winner Zach Blincoe was a whisker behind in fifth.

Bethune soon made his way up to third but couldn’t shake off the GR86 signature mid-field battle that included White, Blincoe, Harry Townshend, Simon Hunter, Lee Zeltwanger and the rest.

Up front Allan drew closer and closer to leader Broughan and had the sizeable crowd on their feet for the last couple of laps as he jinked left and right looking for a way past. Broughan though, kept his head, and drove some great defensive lines to deny the reigning champion a win on the opening weekend.

The mid-field battle lasted for almost the entire 12 laps with too many passes and repasses to count, at the flag behind Broughan, Allan and Bethune it was White in fourth, Blincoe in fifth, Townshend in sixth, Zeltwanger in seventh, Cooper Barnes in eighth, Giddy in ninth and Justin Allen in tenth.

The battle of the race though, belonged to the two leaders and they deservedly took the top two spots after 12 laps of hard racing.

After a great weekend which included a win, a third and a fifth place finish, it was Mackenzie Motorsport’s Blincoe who heads into a nine week break with the early points advantage.