Rival's aggression has Shepherd fuming

Palmerston North Formula First driver Michael Shepherd was livid when youngster Aaron Hodgson cut across his bows as they sped out of the final bend at Manfeild yesterday.

Shepherd is still on track to win his fourth national championship and looked good for a race win in his last outing of the day, a scintillating affair.

But with the top three cars dicing and Shepherd in front, 16-year-old Hodgson drafted past Shepherd, who still had a chance to whip through in Hodgson's slipstream.

But Hodgson gave Shepherd no room, Hodgson won and amid the turmoil as Shepherd shook his fist, Auckland teenager Andrew Vincent pinched second place.

"That was pretty dirty driving," Shepherd said. "He (Hodgson) just literally changed his line very aggressively. He's had a shocker weekend. I will bring the car home before I put it in the fence. I'm not going to risk it."

Shepherd says Formula First racing is supposed to be fun. An inquiry found the incident to be aggressive driving and no penalty was imposed.

Aucklander Hodgson, after 10 years of karting, is in his first season of racing for Palmerston North man Dennis Martin's five-car Sabre team as a Speedsport scholarship winner.

Hodgson appeared unperturbed by Shepherd's reaction.

"That's typical Michael Shepherd," he said. "He's not my biggest fan.

He went wide so I went up inside and passed him quickly."

Shepherd had the last word. He predicted the privateer, himself, would prevail over a team when the series was decided at Taupo at Easter.

After missing testing on Friday to be master of ceremonies at his sister's wedding in Hawke's Bay, Shepherd had qualified third and ended up with two thirds and a fourth for the weekend.

"I'm doing what I need to do for the championship win," he said.

Last year's championship winner, Ian Foster (Auckland), won the second race, but spun off into gravel in the third.

After blowing up his motor at Pukekohe, Palmerston North schoolboy Bramwell King had three sevenths at Manfeild and was down on power with the new engine.

In qualifying he had a throttle cable snap.Palmerston North's Cameron Jones had three thirds in the GT1 class and remained second overall in the championship. His yellow rocketship had a crack in the engine and was blowing oil.

"I couldn't run full power because it was emptying the sump," Jones said. "It was frustrating to be going around at half throttle, but if I'm third in all my races, I will finish second in the championship."

He was still able to reach 247kmh on the straight, but was well behind front-runners Grant Brennan (Tauranga) and John Rae (New Plymouth) yesterday. Only eight of the eligible 22 cars turned up.Mazda Pro Plus 7 championship leader Matt Lockwood had his front and rear shock absorbers misbehaving at Manfeild, affecting the handling of his Mazda Batmobile. They'll be replaced before the final round at Taupo.

He was second in his first race and third in the other two and still heads the title race. In the last race, Lockwood lodged a protest against Aucklander Chris Hanley after he claimed the Aucklander "tapped me and I lost two places".

"He tapped me in practice in the same place," Lockwood said. "Today I think he was getting a bit desperate for the championship."

Lockwood led for seven of the eight laps only to miss a gear and Hanley and Dean McMillan (Hawke's Bay) caught up. Next weekend, Lockwood heads to Adelaide for the Clipsal 500 to drive an Australian V8 ute.Feilding 63-year-old Bill Robson leads the Mini Miglia title race despite a wheel nut falling off in race three yesterday. He had to saunter to the finish, but had two wins in his other two races, one of them over all the cars in the Mini classes.

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