Björk won a thrilling race

Thed Björk extended his championship lead today at Gelleråsen after taking first position in a exciting race. Duncan Huisman took second place and impressed the crowd with yet another impressive drive though the field after starting last. His team mate Robin Rudholm took third after letting Huisman past on the very last lap.

As the race started Carl Rosenblad made a rocket start. He flew past both Tomas Engström and Thed Björk. Huisman, who was forced to start last after making one too many laps on the warm-up, made an even better start. When the first lap was done Huisman had passed six cars.

The race started dry, but dark clouds were gathering on the horison. A few drops of rain came just before the start, but until half of the race the track was still dry.

Björk was first of the top cars to pit, changing two wheels with slicks. The stop was quick and without problems. A man that didn’t stay out of trouble in the pits was Richard Göransson. As his tyres were changed and he was about to leave he collided with privateer Fridh. Both cars survived the accident, but Göransson was penalised with a drive-through taking away his chances for a good position.

Two drivers that also missed out on the top fight was Rosenblad and Engström. A short while after Rosenblads pitstop the rain started to fall. Rosenblad made several mistakes and went off the track. Engström had severe problems in the pit, his mechanics were unable to remove the front left wheel making him lose about 12-13 seconds.

As most of the cars had made their pitstops Johan Stureson was in third position. Huisman and Engström were right on his tail in the very slippery conditions. And Stureson was yet another victim for the rain as he locked up his brakes coming in to a corner, runnig wide. Huisman and Engström slipped past immideately.

As the rain was increasing a number of teams decided to pit and change all four tyres to wets. both West Coast Racing cars, Huisman and Rudholm, pitted for full wets. This provided a thrilling chase for Thed Björk who was in the lead with slick tyres on.

Rudholm and Huisman closed on him but were never able to get close enough. On the last couple of laps Björk even managed to extend his lead. Björk took an important win since Göransson only took one point after his drive-though and an off track excursion. After the race Mattias Andersson was excluded which moved Göransson up to eight place and the last point.

“Awesome! It was so slippery, I didn’t know how this would end. But I had a great support from the team over the radio. In the end the track started to dry up and it helped. I’m so happy with this win,” a very glad Björk said after the race.

Second place man Duncan Huisman was happy with second place but upset over having to start from the back.

“I’m getting bored to start from the back of the grid. I misunderstood the rules, I thought I could do one extra warmup lap. We had some problems with the pit speed limiter and wanted to test that. But anyhow, I could overtake easily in the beginning. It was a nice race and we are still in the race for the championship,” Huisman said.

Björk extended his lead in the championship to 12 points. Huisman gained on Göransson and is only one point behind him making the battle for second and third place very thrilling.

Next race will be held at Knutstorp in south of Sweden on the 10:th of September.

Stay tuned for pictures from the race!