A hat-trick of class victories at Rockingham finally gave Lea Wood the championship spoils in the inagural Jack Sears Trophy for 2013, wrapping up the S2000 class honours with two rounds remaining.
The Central/Wood Racing Vauxhall Vectra driver clinched the maiden Jack Sears Trophy – named after the BTCC’s inagural champion himself – with another perfect weekend to extend his tally to 13 class wins from the 24 races contested, putting him out of reach from nearest rival Liam Griffin with just six races still to run.
Mechanical problems for Griffin all-but curtailed the Addison Lee Motorbase Ford driver’s prospects of hauling in his main rival, Wood dramitically stealing race one spoils on the final tour of race one from under the nose of David Nye at Pif Paf in drying conditons on slick tyres before rounding off a perfect weekend in Corby with two more wins to seal the class championship.
Wood has been quietly dominant throughout the season in the newly-created secondary class for S2000 cars, and admitted after claiming the honours at Rockingham that he has been entertained by the competition throughout the season.
“This weekend was just what we needed. It was great fun to mix it up in the middle of the action – and to capitalise when your rivals are having a tough time is really important”, Wood told btcc.net.
“The excitement has been huge going into every weekend. Take race one at Rockingham – I saw that Liam came into the pits after the green flag lap so I had to make the call and come in to match him.
“It turned out he was having engine issues, which meant we were on slicks while everyone else was on wets, but in the end it made it one of the most exciting races of the season to come through right at the last and get victory as the track dried out.”
Despite his championship fate having now been decided, Wood will still carry on competing for a possibilty of six further victories in the Jack Sears Trophy, the S2000 class as of now still undetermined on its future in the BTCC after entires reduced over the second half of the season to see just three enter the Rockingham round.
He concluded: “In my mind the championship isn’t over until the end of the year, but to get the results we did today and move out of reach of the others is fantastic. The plan for the rest of the season is to keep winning as many as we can!”
