Toby Davis hung on in the face of late pressure from his near rivals to claim his first VW Racing Cup victory for Team HARD in race two at Rockingham.
Davis set off from the line alongside team mate Jamie Bond in identical VW Golfs and it looked like it would be a fierce battle between the HARD men going into Yentwood, but a spin for Bond relegated him down the order and allowed Davis a temporary reprieve from direct attack.
Behind them both, Darelle Wilson made another lightning start as he moved up from his grid position of eighth to third in just a few corners and looked like he was on a charge as he got onto the rear bumper of Kenan Dole. Come lap three and Wilson would cheekily dive up the inside of Dole going into Gracelands to claim second with Jack Walker-Tully following him through for third.
Wilson would come under attack from a determined Walker-Tully in the Cooke & Mason Scirocco and looked like he could lose second if it were not for a timely safety car intervention as Tom Witts spun and hit the barriers on the run down to Yentwood.
The safety car would come out for two laps but that was enough time for Wilson to lose focus and in the run to the Tarzan Hairpin he would slide wide and relegated himself down to eighth when combined with a mistake at the Brook chicane.
That meant Walker-Tully and yesterday’s race winner Phil House would be promoted up into the podium positions and with Davis unable to keep up his early pace, a three-way battle for the lead was on the cards.
House would sit in second for awhile but Walker-Tully didn’t let him settle long and would make a nice dive down the inside of Gracelands to bring the fight towards HARD man Davis.
A touch further down the order, Bobby Thompson would pull off a mint display of late-braking going into Tarzan as he dragged the Polo into fourth place. Unfortunately, he was too far back from the top three to try and gain any more places in the closing laps.
At the front, Davis was coming under increasing pressure as the pack moved onto the final lap, with Walker-Tully pulling level coming out of the Deene Hairpin. However, Davis had the inside line going into Yentwood and would retain his lead until the flag fell, House couldn’t muscle his Scirocco through to second so had to settle for third place behind Walker-Tully.
