Nelson King continued his astonishing run of form in the 2022 Quaife MINI CHALLENGE Trophy with a second victory of the weekend at Croft allowing the Graves Motorsport driver to make it seven wins from eight starts.
Matt Hammond had started the reverse grid race from pole position after the top four from the opening race were switched, with the former champion holding the lead on the run down to Clervaux for the first time ahead of Joe Wiggin and Tom Ovenden.
From fourth on the grid however, King was in mood to hang around and he quickly fought his way up into second spot before launching a bid for the lead going into the hairpin for the first time.
Diving down the inside of Hammond into the left-hander, King swept through into the lead of the race ahead of Hammond, with Oveden, Nicky Taylor and Jack Byrne behind. Wiggin meanwhile had slipped back to sixth.
As King looked to build a lead at the front, Hammond found himself coming under pressure from Taylor after his nipped ahead of Ovenden on the second lap, with Hammond holding onto the place until the end of lap five when he appeared to be slow exiting the hairpin.
It allowed Taylor to edge ahead on the run over the start/finish line but Hammond had the inside line for turn one and reclaimed the place, with team-mate Ovenden following him through.
Mid-way through the lap however, Hammond would find himself shuffled back down the order to seventh – leaving EXCELR8 team-mate Ovenden sitting in second spot and Taylor in third.
By now however, King was three seconds clear up the road and he duly wrapped up a second win of the weekend – adding the fastest lap to ensure a maximum score from the third meeting of the year to cement his championship lead.
“That was a fun race for me,” he said. “The move on Hammond was a bit daring and that was what got me the win, but I really enjoyed that race. I came here wanting to have fun, and hopefully we can do the same again next time out.”
Over the Croft race weekend Nelson manged to achieve pole position in qualifying setting a new lap record, beating the previous lap record held by his driver coach Alex Neville by nearly 2 tenths, as well as a win in race 1 and race 2 setting the fastest lap in both races and winning the fastest lap of the weekend award. With such a strong result Nelson has pulled a 101-point championship lead heading into the next round at Thruxton race circuit where he hopes to continue his run of wins and further extend his championship lead.
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