By: Mike Sullivan/RaceCanada.ca
September 17 2016

Bowmanville, Ontario - With rain forecast for most of Saturday afternoon at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, there was always a good possibility that qualifying and race conditions for the 2016 Al Craighead Memorial Cup would be very different, and that turned out to be the case.

Qualifying was in the dry, and saw a bit of a surprise with young Roman DeAngelis grabbing the pole away from series leader Michael Adams by more than a second. DeAngelis turned a 1:31.629 in his Brian Graham Racing Piper while the best Adams could manage in his Britain West Motorsport Mygale was 1:32.712.

DeAngelis' BGR team mate Ben Hurst qualified 3rd, a half second behind Adams.

After Hurst, the top 3 B-class qualifiers slotted in, with Graham Lobban fastest of the B-class cars, followed by David Graham and Stephen Adams. Rounding out the top 10 was Kevin Kepelke, Mike Lee, Keith Lobban (very nice to see him back in action) and Tony Cove.

As race time drew closer, the clouds darkened, and the rain began to fall.

The 22 minute wet race saw Michael Adams jump out to the lead from his front row starting position and not look back. Adams was able to ease away by by a couple of seconds a lap in the early going, giving him a comfortable lead by the half way point. From then on, all Adams had to do was pace himself and not make a mistake to claim the win. In the end, Adams took the checker with a gap of 10.186 seconds over 2nd place man, B-class winner and his father, Stephen.

While Michael had an easy time of it, Stephen had to work hard for his spot on the podium. Stephen qualified 6th over all, and 3rd in B-class, but by the end of the second lap, him and Graham Lobban had worked their way around the BGR youngsters DeAngelis and Hurst, with Lobban 2nd and Adams 3rd. Adams worked past Lobban for 2nd on lap 3, but then spun a lap later in turn 5 giving 2nd back to Lobban.

The gap see-sawed between them over the next 5 laps before Adams managed to to get by Lobban for good on lap 9 and hold on for the B-class win, and 2nd overall. Lobban took 3rd overall and 2nd in B-class. Rounding out the B-class podium, and 6th over all was Byron Leis.

Rounding out the top 5, and 2nd and 3rd on the A class podium, were the two BGR team mates Roman DeAngelis and Ben Hurst. DeAngelis lost his pole advantage to Michael Adams on the first lap, then slipped back to 4th after the second lap as veterans Lobban and Stephen Adams made their way to the front. The 2 BGR drivers settled into a comfortable pace to take the second and third steps on the A-class podium.

It was unfortunate that Exclusive Autosport and Trenton Estep opted to miss this round, as Estep and Adams have had a great battle all year, since Estep came into the series on the second race weekend. Hopefully Exclusive will return to the series again next season.

Michael Adams once again showed his dominance in the wet with a convincing, flag to flag win, while Roman DeAngelis pole position in the dry showed he will be a force to be reckoned with next season if he returns to the Brian Graham Racing. DeAngelis doesn't yet have a lot of experience in the rain, so it's not surprising to see a pair of experienced veterans get past him under these conditions, but his pace in the dry has increased all season, to the point where he is now a threat to the series leaders. If DeAngelis is back next season he will be a title contender.

Also showing an increased turn of speed in the second half of the season was Ben Hurst. Qualifying just a half a second off Michael Adams pace has to be a confidence builder for the 2015 Toyo Tires F1600 Rookie of the Year.

The 2016 Toyo Tires F1600 Championship wraps up it's season with a pair of races tomorrow at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.