Max Hamelink brought another victory home for Vermin Racing Team at Pocono after a superior strategy saw both Vermin cars finish on the podium. Max managed to snatch pole from Jannes Van Dijk, Richard Tippet grabbed 5th with Alex Cochrane 6th and Keira Harris 13th, who had some pre-race drama when her hardware failed a few hours before the race, so after a bit of nail biting, rebuilding, reinstalling and sweating she was very lucky to actually make it to the race.
The race got underway and it was Max who lead until a lighter 2 stopping Van Dijk slid past him and started to pull a gap, whilst Martijn Van T Land closed in using the same strategy as Dijk, Although Max's laptimes on 1 stop fuel were similar pace, he could comfortably control the pace once Van Dijk and Van T Land had to stop for fuel. The 2 stop strategy played into Richard's hands nicely who was also similar on pace to the heavier cars, enough to easily slip into 2nd place. A glitch would cause some confusion towards the end of the race but Richard never lost 2nd place (although the glitch said he was now 4th until the final lap of the race) and just kept things clean and collected to take his first Trout league podium.
Alex was running nicely behind Richard but had a major glitch that would force him to DNF, which was a shame as he was going to try a different strategy to try and catapult himself ahead of Richard, but instead was catapulted out of the race by the glitch. Keira had a very solid race, mostly staying out of trouble and staying cool even after a close encounter down the straight who managed to just clip her rear wheel but luckily Keira avoided a huge accident and brought home a good solid 6th, especially after some late race fuel issues which cost her time as she had to pit again for a splash and dash. A fantastic performance in light of her earlier PC problem, but also another mixed day for Triple Eight.
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Tippet
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