Donington threw the AFRC title race wide open. An action packed race weekend with a huge grid of 39 cars arrived at the Midlands circuit for Rounds 5 & 6, qualifying for this number of cars was relatively incident free, however a couple of mechanical issues arose dropping the starting numbers to 37 by the time with 2 Class A car withdrawing. This left us with the following class split of cars.
Class A – 3 cars – (240 – 300 bhp/tonne)
Class B – 6 cars – (180 – 240 bhp/tonne)
Class C – 18 cars – (135 – 180 bhp/tonne)
Class D – 9 cars – (up to 135 bhp/tonne)
Invitational – 1 car
With such a mix of cars in Class C and D the AFRC probably had its most exciting and closest racing to date, with battles ensuing at every point of the circuit.
Such was the closeness of the racing Race 2 saw the 3 Class C cars of Keith Attwood, Ed McKean and Paul Roddison crossing the line within 0.5 seconds of each other to decide 2nd in class, with Keith edging the place. (Full race results can be found >>> HERE <<<)
But as you will see from the championship tables we have a new leader at the top, with 2017 Champion Paul Waterhouse surging in to the lead. With the next round 0nly a month away the conclusion to the 2019 Season isn’t too far away, but with 40 points on offer all is still to play for. However, it gets a little more interesting now as drop rounds come into play. The AFRC runs on a best 6 of 8 rounds as such some of the contenders for the title can’t actually accumulate a full 40 points above what they already have.
The top 10 drivers and their theoretical maximum points they can score at the next round, along with their maximum final score are shown below.
| Name | Current Points | Max Points at Next Event | Possible Final Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Waterhouse | 80 | 27 | 107 | |
| Chris Slator | 78 | 30 | 108 | |
| Simon Frowen | 72 | 32 | 104 | |
| Mark Inman | 65 | 31 | 96 | |
| Keith Attwood | 50 | 40 | 90 | |
| Jonathan Candler | 50 | 40 | 90 | |
| Gareth Baxter | 48 | 32 | 80 | |
| Ro Barrett | 42 | 36 | 78 | |
| Darren Howe | 40 | 40 | 80 | |
| Douglas Inglis | 28 | 40 | 68 |
As you can see the fight is now down to the top 6 drivers. With Mark, Keith and John only realistically having a chance if the drivers above them don’t score and then only if they bring home second places or above in both races. A tall ask.
For Paul, Chris and Frodo it really is a straight battle as they all have drop rounds to contend with, limiting their points haul at the next round and all have very closely matched final points tallies.
As the 2018 finale showed nothing is set in stone as multiple retirements of the top 3 produced an unexpected result. Could the same happen again?