Race win not enough for Lobb

A race win at Pukekohe Park Raceway was not enough for Caine Lobb to improve his third position in the ENZED V8 Ute Championship at the weekend.

A dnf in the first of three races left the Whangarei driver on the back foot for the final day of the six round series which had come down to a last round battle for positions between the four leading drivers.

Top of the ladder driver Palmerston North's Matt Lockwood entered the final round with second placed Simon Beirne from Christchurch breathing down his neck for the championship title. Lobb went to Pukekohe with the intention to overtake Beirne and claim second place for himself.

Achieving a third place in the qualification session did not help Caine Lobb when he pulled a 13th place in the marble draw for his start grid position. In race one Lobb moved up through the pack but struck trouble when it came to getting around rival Simon Beirne. When trying to get around Beirne down the long back straight of the fast circuit things went awry for Lobb.

"Simon had been blocking me hard and even pushed me out into the grass at one point along the straight. I was getting frustrated and tried to outbrake him at the hairpin but pushed too hard unfortunately." said Lobb.

Leaving the circuit at the end of the straight while attempting to get past Beirne and running off into the gravel left Lobb with a dnf and ended his hopes to overtake Beirne in the points over the weekend.

With a reverse grid start for the second race of the day, Lobb was to start in fifth place. Within a lap he was leading the race and defending it against a hard charging Dayne Running in second. Lobb held off the NZ Super Sedan champion through to the end of the fast paced race where the two storming drivers pulled a large gap from the rest of the field.

Luck was not going to help Lobb over the weekend however and a start from 15th on the grid for the final race of the series was going to make for hard work. As Dayne Running struggled to keep championship leader Matt Lockwood behind him for the race win, Lobb was making his way through the slower cars at the rear of the pack.

Eventually making his way into an incredible fourth place from the rear of the pack, Lobb was in full chase mode and gaining on the leading three cars who were in full battle for the win. The gap was too large to close before the end of the race with Lobb settling for his first race finish off the podium in the ENZED V8 Ute season.

In the very last lap of the race Lockwood outbraked Running into the hairpin, saved himself from going off the edge pushing Running wide and claimed the lead. Mack Peach took advantage of the situation to follow through into second place leaving Running to gather himself together and cross the line in third.

That enterprising move of Peach was to be the undoing of Lobb who, even with his hard fought fourth place in the race, succumbed to Peach who placed third overall at the season's conclusion pipping him by a hard-to-believe one point!

The Mark Cromie Holden Racing Team managed to remain philisophical and upbeat regarding their first season in the ENZED V8 Ute Series.

"In each race Caine has finished, it has been in a podium spot right up until the final race today where he came in fourth. His results have been very impressive in the championship." said Lobb's manager Brian Craig.

"The dnfs have really pushed us down in the points but they haven't all been Caine's fault. We have certainly learnt a lot from them which we can use in the next season." said team principal Mark Cromie.

Caine Lobb and the Mark Cromie Holden Racing Team now look forward to the new season which begins at Manfeild Autocourse on November 21-23 and runs over eight rounds to wind up the championship at the new Hampton Downs circuit in May 2009.