Sunday 02/27/2011
Autopolis

Neal Johnson takes dominating victory at WD Autopolis GT challenge!



Autopolis served up a day filled with mayhem with only 13 of the 22 starting entries crossing the finish line, but that didnt stop Neal Johnson from repeating what has become an all to familier routine of dominating the entire weekend, taking pole, fast lap, and leeding all of the 54 laps of the event.



Quallifying saw a tense battle in the LMPC class with Johnson and Team Barista driver Brian Farmer trading hot laps with Farmer keeping the top spot by a margin of less than 0.64, but on the very last hot lap of the session Neal must have found clear track on his "golden" lap and took it away decisively.

On the start Farmer had a great get away and was neck and neck with Neal entering turn 1, but at the half way point of the apex Farmer discoverd Neal was in his "blind spot" and therefore decided discretion was the better part of valar and kept wide rather than turn in. It turned out to be the right move, as if he had turned in it would have ended in tears.



Neal maintaned about a 1.5 sec gap, but on lap 5 as the LMPC's began to encounter traffic Famer fell back imediately ultimately sustaining some major damage when he encounterd a spun car in the very greasy turn 11. This appeard to be the most troublesome spot of the track for many.

Farmer would take 2nd in LMPC but out of the points and retiring on lap 19. Taking 3rd in LMPC was returning WD driver Steen Nielsen who also was out of the points retiring on lap 17.

In GT Scott Clark put in an awsome drive easily taking the win. Rookie sensation Nick Newcombe and Hein Houweling had a heated battle but it was Hein who ultimately took 2nd, followed by a fine 3 place by Newcombe.







In GTC, and perhaps the biggest story of the weekend was the 1,2,3 finish of Team DDP with Kevin Wood finishing 1st, Paul Hamilton 2nd, and Martin Koehler 3rd.







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Standings

The next event in the 2011 CMS LMS World division will be the 5 class event at Autopolis on Sunday March 6th.