The 14th and 15th October 2017 NQ Khanacross Series results
The third and final round of the NQ Khanacross Series was held at Mossman last weekend (14-15 October) in bright sunny conditions.
Coming into the round Tim Hall in his triple S Pulsar and Heath Barry in the mighty Micra where tied on points for the outright placings and some of the classes were to close to call, so it all came down to the final round and Saturday started hot, fast and dusty.
Barry set the pace on lap one. Rick Ranscombe set the next two fasted times but more importantly, Hall clawed back time on Barry. The series lead swapped continually between the pair with Barry setting impressive times but loosing all the advantage in just one poor run then retaking the lead a few runs later.
Meantime FNQ club member, Kevin Durose in another triple S Pulsar was setting the pace from where he left of in round two, in a faultless display to be well clear of the field in first place. It was all Pulsars out in front and with a veritable six entrants out of the field of 26 driving the mighty machines, it was little wonder that towards the final two runs on Saturday that they held the top three spots, with Ranscombe within just .9 of a second from taking the outright position from Durose.
The track had held up well all day although a little dusty, fortunately the wind always blew the dust away so it wasn’t a problem for spectators or drivers.
Sunday breakfast provided by the Mossman club was every bit as good as it looked but all competitors where keen to start racing. A water truck Saturday night settled the dust on the lower part of the track and a brief shower early morning took care of the rest.
With the hills coming alive too the sounds of thumping V8’s and four cylinders screaming on the rev limiter, it didn’t take long for the dust to re-emerge especially after president Bob held the large Falcon on full lock from corner to corner billowing great clouds of dust and not to be out done the Bluebird piloted by Sam Madge, slid gracefully sideways around every bend.
The completion was close all the way down the order with many bragging rights battles taking place between drivers.
In the end the NQ Series was decided in the last three runs. Unfortunately Barry hit a course marker incurring a five second penalty, which shot Hall into third place for the weekend and first place in the series. Barry recorded fastest times on the last two runs but it was not enough to claw back the deficit, with the final margin being just 2.39 seconds.
Oh so close, that after six days of racing over three events it still came down to the final run.
Following his round two win, Kevin Durose won this event convincingly by over seven seconds from Rick Rancombe and must be ruing his poor performance in round one, scoring only two points too finish 3rd in the series outright.
ROUND THREE
