Motorsport: Third place enough to secure series win

Dean Brindle in action at Western Springs. Photo / James Selwyn

Hamilton sprint car driver Dean Brindle's third place finish at WxC Speedway Western Springs on Saturday night was just enough to earn him the national series championship.

The 39-year-old overturned American-Kiwi Jonathan Allard's series lead to finally win the overall title, which has eluded him for a number of years.

Brindle finished third in Saturday night's feature race behind North Shore driver Michael Pickens in second and Jamie Larson from Palmerston North.

Brad Mosen kept up his winning ways in the midget division, claiming his fifth consecutive main event victory, as well as the overall series championship. Regular challenger Hayden Williams finished second ahead of his teammate Leon Burgess in third.

"Coming here every week I always feel so nervous, it's stressful and it winds me up, I feel sick, but as soon as I get out on a race track like that and just gas it up, there's no better feeling; that's pretty much as good as life gets for me," said 27-year-old Mosen.

"I'm only 50 per cent of the package though, the boys in my team work their butts off to make this car a joy to drive and it's really showed during the latter half of the season."

Scott Baker won family bragging rights in winning Saturday night's TQ feature as he reversed his brother Ryan's series lead to steal the championship at the death.

"This just caps off an amazing season for us, winning five features and now the overall title too has been incredible," he said.

"That was the most amazing track I've ever driven on in seven years of TQ racing so a great way to finish the season."

Stephen Wilson took out the final F2 midget feature of the season but it wasn't enough to dethrone Kayne Buck, who did enough to claim the series championship by finishing second; Andy Sherratt was third.

For more information, including full championship results, visit www.springsspeedway.com.