Bad luck crashes title hope

BAD luck cruelled any chance Gympie speedway driver Tim Aitkin had of defending his Queensland State Street Sedan title in Maryborough on the weekend.

Picture: submitted

BAD luck cruelled any chance Gympie speedway driver Tim Aitkin had of defending his Queensland State Street Sedan title in Maryborough on the weekend.

The 30 year old was out to regain his title he won in Rockhampton last year, but crashes and mechanical problems slowed his charge to the final.

Aitkin said his weekend started as per plan when he won his first heat and was still on track after finishing fourth in the second heat after starting from the rear of the field.

But his weekend started to go bad in the third heat when he failed to finish after being taken out by an opposing driver.

Aitkin said when the green light came on for the start of the third race a car in front of him failed to take off.

“He left me no where to go and I got cleaned up,” Aitkin said.

The Gympie driver's car suffered steering damage and Aitkin failed to finish.

Aitkin said as all points gained in heats went toward a position in the final, not finishing made the rest of his weekend extremely challenging.

“It makes it very hard to get a good spot in the final if you don't finish a heat,” he said.

Aitkin and his crew worked hard to fix his Commodore and returned to win his fourth heat on Sunday night.

Despite all the drama Aitkin qualified 11th out of 64 cars for the final, but bad luck again returned in the feature race.

Aitkin had fought his way up to about sixth spot when another racer tried to pass him while lapping another car.

“He tried to squeeze between me and the lapped car and he ended up putting us both into the fence and out of the race,” Aitkin said.

“It (the crash) wrecked my steering again and I was left struggling just trying to finish the race.”

“It was very disappointing to lose the way we did; if we had have been able to qualify up front for the final you never know where I could have finished.”

Maryborough driver Scott Thompson was the eventual winner of the event, taking the chequered flag on his home circuit.

Originally published as Bad luck crashes title hope