After more than two years on the sidelines, Wood, who was a regular top five contender in the 2006 NSW Championship, returned to the fold with the Redback Motorsport team driving their # 22 RF98 Van Diemen and he certainly showed everyone the way around the 2.2 km Wakefield Park circuit from qualifying right through to the third and final race of the weekend.

Wood was quick from the beginning of the weekend when he paced the field on Saturday morning in qualifying by topping the time sheets with a best lap of 1:03.0402 ahead of fellow Queenslander Brendon Nelson, who was making his debut in the NSW Championship with the Anglo Australian Motorsport team, and third quickest was NSW Championship leader and round one dominator Leigh Burges.

In the opening race on Saturday afternoon, Wood lead the field from start to finish over the 15 lap distance and ended up defeating an impressive Nelson and in third was a recovering and hard charging Daniel Lewis. The opening race was marred by an incident between Burges and Lewis as they fought for a spot inside the top three and it resulted in Burges making contact with the rear left hand side of Lewis’ car as he attempted a pass that didn’t quite go to plan. The contact from Burges sent Lewis into a spin and dropped him down the order while Burges consequently suffered damage to the front end of his car and had to make an unscheduled pit stop.

Finishing just outside the top three in race one was rookie Adam Leung in fourth and Russell Newell in fifth place. Although he was two laps down on the leaders, Burgess was able to rejoin the race and score valuable points towards his NSW Championship chase.

The second race, over 12 laps, on Sunday morning saw Wood continue his domination and he never put a foot wrong as he raced to victory to defeat Lewis and Burges. After a disastrous opening race, Burges managed to fight his way back from the rear of the grid to finish in a strong third place. Nelson was unable to finish on the podium in race two due to a spin mid race while running strongly inside the top three and he finished back in fourth ahead of Leung in fifth place. Newcomer Leung made a slow start to race two, who had started in the wrong gear (third), and fell back to the rear of the grid but worked his way back to finish in fifth.

Rain came down leading into the third and final race on Sunday afternoon and it certainly threw a spanner into the works for the teams as they had enjoyed dry conditions all weekend up until that point. By the start of the final race the rain had subsided but the circuit still had a number of wet patches and it made driving quite tricky. After getting away to a clean start, Wood was the first to encounter the harsh realities of the slippery circuit as he entered turn eight ‘the fish hook’ on the opening lap and fell off the circuit and it allowed both Lewis and Burges to move by.

Wood was able to fight his way back to the front and regained his lead within a handful of laps from leader at the time Lewis and as the circuit dried out the quicker he became and from there he went on to complete a clean sweep of the weekend. Lewis and Nelson finished back in second and third respectively. Nelson enjoyed what was a very promising debut by finishing the weekend on the podium after a close dice with Burges during the latter stages of the 14 lap race and during the closing laps he was actually catching second placed Lewis. Burges and Leung finished back in fourth and fifth place.

After such a promising start to the NSW Championship, Newell had a weekend that he would much rather forget at Wakefield Park Raceway and he is now looking forward to the next round at Oran Park Raceway where he is hoping to redeem himself and return to podium contention.

Newcomer David Chitty showed further progression throughout the weekend and built up more and more speed and he was able to match with some of his more experienced competitors. Jason Liddell had a mixed weekend but managed to fight on and finished just outside the top five.

In the ‘Historic’ class the best from the three races was defending NSW Champion Cas Galjaardt and his results have now moved in him into the NSW Championship lead in his respective class.

Aside from Newell, the hard luck stories of the weekend came from ‘Historic’ class runner Tony Cavanagh, who was having his first run of the year in the NSW Championship, was unable to take part in both race two and three due to mechanical issues suffered on the Saturday. Friday’s practice claimed Icon Motorsport driver Derryn Harrison due to suffering engine failure and he took no further part in the remainder of the weekend.

The lead of the NSW Championship point standings now sees Lewis in command and he sits ahead of Burges by a narrow margin and Leung currently holds down third place.

Oran Park Raceway on May 30 and 31 is where and when the third round of the NSW Championship is to be fought out.

For more information about the NSW Formula Ford 1600 Championship visit: www.ff1600.org.au 

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