Loose ignition wire costs Little victory

A WIRE falling off the ignition switch and a 1km/h error dashed truck racer Malcolm Little's hopes of good points at the weekend's truck racing at Manfeild.
Little got a consolation win in the reverse-grid Flying Farewell, when major rival Andrew Porter failed to finish, but that race was not for points.
Little, who is waiting for his new race engine to be cleared from Customs, ran his old engine at the weekend. He was second to Porter in race one and was leading race two when the wire came off the ignition switch, cutting power to the injector pump.
"It just petered out," he said. The Freightliner had been checked from top to bottom before the season, but the loose wire had been missed.
And then in race three the Masterton man was disqualified for doing just 1km/h over the speed limit of 160km/h. Trucks are limited to 160 for safety reasons and the limit is strictly enforced.
Little said the truck is governed to that speed, but it was possible to exceed it briefly when getting a "tow" from a truck in front or when accelerating rapidly to the limit.
"You've got to back off pretty quickly," he said.
With only three meetings to the season, his prospects of winning the championship are gone, but he's hoping the new engine will see the West Bush Deer Stud Freightliner getting the chequered flag more often, starting with the March 4 ? 5 meeting at Timaru.
Milton Durham, of Christchurch, in a debut drive in the second Boss Racing Team truck, a Kenworth, got a third place in the Flying Farewell.