Rick Kelly is the 2006 V8 Supercar Champ after the Stewards dismissed Triple 8 Racings appeal this afternoon (Story Here).
Now I'm not a sore loser, but I do feel Craig Lowndes has been hard done by... here are some reasons why the championship's end has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth...
- Mark Skaife's blocking in Race 1, which at one point drove Lowndes off the track and almost allowed Kelly to pass numerous times. (Skaife was shown a caution flag for bad sportsmanship.)
- Garth Tander's slowing and blocking strategy in Race 2. In Race 1 Tander had a much faster car, and suddenly with Lowndes behind him and Kelly a fair gap back Tander's car was doing 2 seconds or more a lap slower - he was given a caution flag and eventually black flagged for intentionally blocking.
- Race 3 - Todd Kelly (Rick's brother) had been the fastest car all weekend, he was visiblly faster than Lowndes in Races 1 and 2, but suddenly in Race 3 Lowndes seemed stuck right behind him for the first 3 laps, sandwiched between Todd and Rick Kelly.
- Being caught in between the Kelly brothers Lowndes was spun by Rick, I don't feel it was intentional, but it was careless and cost the championship and the chance of a decent race to the finish.
The simple fact is that if the other Holden drivers had have raced their own race and not played gang up on Lowndes the incident in Race 3 would not have happened, and we'd probably have a different champion today (Lowndes car had more race pace than Kelly's).
It's made the whole 2006 season feel a bit wasted to me, if Kelly had of won the championship in a fair fight I would be dissapointed but not complaining. However I just feel that Kelly's win isn't 100% honest (and maybe not because of his actions but his team mate's), and because of that not rightfully earnt.
3 comments:
Never thought I'd be saying this but...I'm happy with the end result.
I can see your point about the Holden drivers ganging up on Lowndes, and yeah i agree that they were - but i also think, isn't that just a part of racing?
It comes down to what you think should decide the outcome of the race:
- Car speed, or
- Driver ability
Obviously a combination of the two are optimum. But in times like these, where Lowndes obviously had the faster car, (and I'm not disputing his ability), it came down to driver ability & moreso strategy. I guess it wasn't fair that it was Skaife, Todd Kelly, and Tander's ability that kept Lowndes under wraps (and not Rick), but i still think that this is a big part of racing. Just cos someone has a faster car, doesn't necessarily mean you should let them through.
So...i call myself a Ford fan and i'm still typing this...I can definitely see the sour side to the championship and I'm so disappointed for Lowndes and Ford...but credit where credit's due...Rick is a good driver and has done well this year (COULD launch into a discussion here about points scoring but i won't ;)).
So....bring on 2007 where Lowndesy will be fired up and will hopefully blow them all out of the water :)
woops i forgot to leave my name...Shelley Poulsen
The rules state that you can't agressivly block and intentionally slow down another driver.
So what Skaife, Tander and T-Kelly were doing was outside of the rules.
Which means I don't think it was a case of 'driver ability' but a case of unfair play.
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