Adam and Frazer hold on to win
Connor Adam and Billy Frazer won the second TOYOTA GAZOO Racing TR86 endurance race at a soggy Hampton Downs, but were made to work for it by a charging Christina Orr-West and Rowan Shepherd.
The wet second race - reduced to 50 minutes because of stoppages during the afternoon at a soaking wet Hampton Downs circuit - was led away by the impressive Orr-West as Adam got a little too much wheel spin at the lights.
The Mark Mallard and Peter Vodanovich car sat in third just a few tenths behind. Brad Jesson had the Richards Toyota car up to fourth, with the morning race winner Tayler Bryant cruising along in fifth and Marco Giltrap following closely in sixth.
On lap 7 Adam made an impressive pass around the outside of Orr-West through Turn 1 - a great pass at the best of times let alone in the soaking wet conditions. He immediately began to pull away, leaving the yellow Dayle ITM car in the cross hairs of Vodanovich. A master in the wet, Orr-West was able to keep Adam in her sights and Vodanovich behind for the first half of the race with some great laps that were often half a second or more faster than her rivals.
By the 20 minute mark, Adam was into his stride in his familiar Post Haste car and had established a lead of four seconds. Orr-West was still motoring along nicely in second place and had a few car lengths over Vodanovich. Jesson sat in fourth, Giltrap in fifth and Bryant was falling back in sixth.
The pit window opened just before half way and first in was Christina with a 44 second changeover to Rowan Shepherd. Adam and Vodanovich were the last in and entered the pits together. The change from Adam to Billy Frazer, however, was the slickest of the day and as the cars resumed for the second half of the race, Billy held a comfortable eight and a half second lead over Shepherd and it was then Simon Evans sitting in third after Mark Mallard was forced to make a second quick stop to fix a loose window net on the Creme Insurance TR86.
The man on the move as the race entered its final 15 minutes was Shepherd who was eating into Frazer's lead with every lap as the track rapidly dried.
The gap to the front came down to seven seconds, then at the rate of around half a second per lap. Rowan had managed to reduce it to just under two seconds into the final stages of the race but that was as far as he got. Frazer counted down the clock to bag a well-earned win for himself and Adam.
The Daye ITM crew were satisfied with a fighting second and Marco Giltrap and Simon Evans scored their first podium in TR86 racing.
A flying Dan Gaunt couldn't catch the leaders and had to settle for fourth with Bryant in the MTF Finance car, with Alexandra Whitley and Jesson fifth and Mallard and Vodanovich a delayed sixth.
