Dramatic finale hands Feldman Ipswich sprint round

Tuesday 25 August, 2020
Matthew Feldman has won the Ipswich West Moreton Auto Club’s second dirt sprint of the year.
Matthew Feldman has pulled off a brilliant victory in the Ipswich West Moreton Auto Club’s second dirt sprint of the year after the Mitsubishi Evo driver claimed the win during the final run of the day.
 
Taking place in Ipswich, 44 hopefuls from around the state were entered in the event, which saw each driver get 20 laps over five split runs in an attempt to post the fastest time.
 
Facing fierce competition from an array of Subaru WRX drivers right from the get-go, Feldman managed to post the fastest time in second run of the day, before waiting until the second lap of the final run to record his event winning time of 43.43 seconds. 
 

Feldman’s time saw him replace run four winner Wayne Poulier as the event’s outright leader and the latter was unable to break the sub 44 time in the remaining two laps, meaning he settled with a well-deserved second place thanks to his time of 44.04 seconds.

 
Rounding out the event’s top three was Alan Wienert with the Subaru WRX pilot having led the competition in the first and third runs, only to drop to third in the standings after he couldn’t better the top two with his time of 44.51 seconds.
 
Following on from the event, Feldman was thrilled to take out the victory in dramatic fashion, especially since he beat a number of his rivals. 
 
“It’s a grassroots competition so to win something like that is great,” Feldman said.
 
“I was a little bit surprised as I haven’t done dirt stuff in a while but it’s really good as I hadn’t seemed to have lost anything.
 
“A couple of the boys in the WRXs were disappointed I pipped them in the end in the Evo. We have taken out the event before but it’s always good competition at these events thanks to those guys.
 

“I was a little bit unlucky earlier in the day and I knew I had to put something together at one point, so it was great to post such a good time when I did.”

With Feldman leading the top few drivers, which was made up of Class E entrants, the best performing non Subaru/Mitsubishi car came through Class B winner Barry Clark, who steered his BMW 320i to fifth outright - just sixth hundredths of a second faster than Class A winner and Honda Civic driver David Smith.

 
 
Other class winners saw the 10th placed Andrew Pearce claim Class D honours in the Focus XR5 and just two positions below him was Cameron Mclean who won Class C.
 

Another Subaru WRX driver to pick up some silverware during then was Ladies class winner Stephanie Muston in 13th outright, while the fastest junior of the day title went to Ethan Kilbride who finished 23rd.

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