Motorsport: Smith pockets another title

Smith defended his MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series title.

Defending MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series champion Ken Smith got his second title in two years. However, it was former series champion Chris Hyde who won both races at the final round of the 2009/10 series at the Formula One Qantas Australian Grand Prix meeting in Melbourne over the weekend.

Heading into the meeting Steve Ross retained a narrow series point's lead. And after edging out Smith and Hyde for pole position, his chances of halting Smith's late season title charge looked good. It all came unstuck though, when halfway through Saturday's race - while he was lying second behind Hyde but in front of Smith - Ross rolled to a stop with a broken half shaft.

From that moment on it was Smith's title to lose. With a second place finish again on Sunday, the evergreen 68-year-old New Zealander won the title for a second year in a row.

"It's mighty, just mighty, to get it [the MSC title] again," said Smith. "I knew if we were reliable and finished we'd be in the running for the title and that's exactly what happened."

Hyde and Smith weren't hanging around out on the track in their fight for the championship, as they were the only two drivers to lap under the 1min 55sec mark in the second race, with Smith further lowering the category track lap record he claimed on Saturday afternoon.

Ross charged from the back of the 30-strong grid to eventually cross the finish line in fourth behind Hyde, Smith and UK driver Mark Dwyer.

"That's life," said Ross as he reflected on what turned out to be an ill-fated final series round. "If we were to have won we were going to have to finish between fifth and seventh and Ken would have had to have a DNF, but you can't give up can you?

"It was a fairly committed drive, but I wasn't going to do anything stupid just to get up the front. When there were chances I took them and we got as high as we could in the circumstances."

Best-placed local Aussie driver was again D'Arcy Russell in seventh place.

Until late in the race Class A honours looked set to again go to hard-driving Englishman Greg Thornton who was running in company with Russell in the top 10. However, he and Kerry Anderson had a coming together as the latter was being lapped and Thornton's race was run.

In his absence, Class A honours went to Bruce Leeson, the US-based Australian driver, who saw it as just reward for clockwork consistency.

"Compared with my last run at the AGP which was a disaster from the outset, I'm very happy. I lived in Melbourne for four years and, you know, it's great to drive on a track in a park I used to run around once or twice a week," said Leeson.

Points-wise the final series podium was Smith, Ross and Ian Clements who was lucky to hold out the hard-charging Hyde after having to sit out both final round races with a broken engine. Hyde won the opening round of the 2009/10 MSC series at Manfeild in November last year but struggled with reliability issues at the Lady Wigram Trophy meeting and the two NZ Festival of Motor Racing-Bruce McLaren meetings in New Zealand in January.

This meant that despite his two wins at the final round, he couldn't quite leapfrog Clements for a place on the series podium.

"Heading into it I was just hoping that after all the bad luck I've had this season I'd get a break, and I did," said Hyde. "I had my Dad [Kiwi racer Avon Hyde] on the radio saying just breath, don't make any mistakes, be the best you can and honestly that's the best I've driven all my life and I don't think it could have gone any better.

"Stuie [car owner Stu Lush] and I have put a lot into this campaign this year, and right now no matter how much it's cost both of us it's been worthwhile. I'll have forgotten about the money in a couple or three years but this feeling, of knowing what we have achieved here this weekend, will last us forever."

Not even the fact that his car's input shaft broke on the cool-down lap could wipe the smile off Hyde's face.

"In fact," he said, "When it happened I just laughed and laughed, I couldn't believe how it had just hung on until I crossed the finish line. It's a sign our luck has changed."

A little further back, meanwhile, 18th place was enough to secure series' newcomer Kerry McIntosh from Auckland the Class A series title for 2009/10.

"The Begg is my first racing car and the MSC series is my first effort behind the wheel for which I would like to acknowledge the sterling job all the series sponsors have done for us, and make special mention of the role Roger Williams has played in all this," he said. "He was the one who helped motivate me this year, as well as help me get to Ruapuna for the Lady Wigram Trophy meeting and with parts here in Melbourne.

KENNY SMITH'S RACING RECORD

1958 - 1st Hillclimb Championship
1960 - 1st Hillclimb Championship
1971 - 1st Penang Grand Prix
1971 - 4th Selangor Grand Prix (Malaysia)
1972 - 1st National Formula Championship for single seaters
1972 - 1st Penang Grand Prix
1976 - 1st New Zealand Grand Prix
1976 - 1st Peter Stuyvesant International Championship Series
1976 - 2nd Rothmans Formula 5000 Australian Series
1976 - 1st Lady Wigram Trophy Race
1979 - 2nd Selangor Grand Prix (Malaysia)
1980 - Shell Oil Shell Sport Merit Award
1981 - 1st Penang Grand Prix
1982 - 1st Malaysian Grand Prix
1983 - 1st Lady Wigram Trophy Race
1987 - 3rd Australian Goldstar Championship
1988 - MBE for services to motorsport
1990 - 1st in the New Zealand Grand Prix
1991 - 1st Lady Wigram Trophy Race
1995 - 1st in the Manfeild winter series
1995 - 1st in the Trans-Tasman Championship (F5000)
1995 - Inducted into the New Zealand Motorsport Hall of Fame
2001 - 1st Formula Ford Festival
2004 - 1st New Zealand Grand Prix
2007/8 - 2nd MSC F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series
2008/9 - 1st MSC F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series
2009/10 - 1st MSC F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series