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| Brian Smith and Dai Yoshihara fought tooth and nail for first place in some of the most spectacular racing seen to date. Too bad the race was held at 12am and there were few spectators in the 30 degree weather around to witness some of the best racing to be seen in any race series! |
On the seventh lap, Yoshihara and Smith made contact in the poorly lit infield turn 4, when Smith turned in on Yoshihara as he was making a pass attempt, resulting in both cars spinning out of control. Yoshihara’s car slid into the dirt while Smith’s car narrowly missed a concrete corner workers station.
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| Kaboom! Smith and Yoshihara collided in one of the dark sections of the track, Dai was attempting to pass and Brian could not see him in the dark and turned in on him causing both cars to spin out of control. Yoshihara's car was too badly damaged to continue but Smith went on. The APD car narrowly missed hitting the concrete corner workers stand at high speed. The wreck caused a full course yellow. |
While Smith’s car suffered light damage, Yoshihara’s steering was broken and he was unable to continue. The accident led to a long full course yellow which bunched the field. At the restart Randy Gibb pulled off a daring and reckless pass on the APD TSX on the oval forcing Smith to take evasive action and lose momentum. With one lap left, Smith was unable to recover giving Gibb the win. Smith came in second with Richard Ho third.
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| The full course yellow resulted in a very short sprint to the finish line. Randy Gibb went on to win after a controversial move to block the faster APD car. |
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| Tempers were flaring in the garage but the drivers agreed that the accident was caused largely due to the dark conditions. |
There were many heated discussion in the pits with Team MotoIQ accusing ADP of blocking leading to the Yoshihara/Smith crash and APD accusing Gibb of dangerous driving in the pass that gave him the win. In the end everyone decided to let it all pass without protests in an act of good sportsmanship. What defined dirty driving was clearly discussed in the next driver's meeting. The amazing thing is that less than 2 seconds separated the fastest from the slowest cars even with a field as diverse as Nissan Sentras to Honda S2000’s, proof that the MPTCC rule set works.
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| Dai Yoshihara and Chris Marion listen to Brian Smith's side of the story. |
