Paul Stokell has taken Race 2 honours by the smallest margin in the history of Hertz MINI Challenge – delivered by Pizza Capers during the Armor All Gold Coast 600 today.

DecoRug Racing’s Stokell pinched the win on the last corner of the 10 lap race when ON TIME EARTH driver Sean Carter ran wide. Stokell and Carter were neck and neck coming down the final straight, so much so they couldn’t be judged by the naked eye, but time control told the story as Stokell emerged victorious by a mere 0.01 seconds.

Coming home third for a second consecutive podium this weekend was Gold Coast MINI Dealer Beric Lynton whose flat out performance sees him as the top placed local driver for the weekend thus far.

Unfortunately Carter’s main rival for third in the championship standings, Peter McNiven, struggled with ABS issues in his Supercharger Batteries MINI R56 and dropped down to 13th for the race. This now sees the gap for third in the championship reduced to Carter’s favour.

Despite starting from the rear of the grid after replacing an entire engine overnight – DecoRug boss Bill Gremos performed well on his first race in the MINI Challenge series finishing 12th from his 16th place start on the grid.

Rounding out the top-10 was Gold Coaster Tom Pickett whose consistency is beginning to pay off despite limited experience of the category.

Pizza Capers UberStar driver Glenn Seton put in a stella performance finishing fifth despite starting from 13th on the grid. The Gold Coast driver also posted the fastest lap of the race as he caved his way past 8 cars over the 10 lap race.

Unfortunately it was not all smiles for MINI Challenge drivers Brendan Cook and Chris Wootton who both retired from the race. Cook was subject to a passenger ride when the wheel nuts sheered completely off bringing his race to an abrupt halt. Fortunately there was no further damage as a result of the incident and ‘Cookie’ will be back on track for tomorrow’s final race.

MINI Challenge Race 2 winner Paul Stokell said:“That was some great racing, I’m used to that sort of close battling with Chris [Alajajian] so is great to see the younger guys starting to step it up. We got held up over the final sector by the CXC car and this put a bit of pressure on Sean as I was able to close right on his tail. When he ran wide I slipped down the inside and managed to just nose it first across the line – although I couldn’t split it from where I was sitting! With Alajajian finishing fourth it helps with the championship  standings but there is still a very long way to go if I want to catch him so we’ll be looking for back-to-back wins after tomorrow’s final session.”

MINI Challenge driver Sean Carter said:“Obviously that was disappointing to not take the race win and miss out by such a small margin. Unfortunately the very last sector of the race we got held up by a slower car which was spitting a bit of oil out onto the track. Come the final corner I tried to limit the wheel spin and use the slower car to draft off but we ran a bit wide and Paul was able to capitalise on the situation. Other than that it was really encouraging that we were able to lead for 99% of the race especially with a guy like Stokell behind us who is the master of this series. Hopefully we can take that away with us and give it a red hot solid, Gold Coast go tomorrow.”

Hertz MINI Challenge – delivered by Pizza Capers is the most exciting, premium single-make series in the world. The seven round series runs as an official support category of the V8 Supercar Championship Series. Catch all the on-track action for Race 3 at 09.00am tomorrow at the Armor All Gold Coast 600.

Armor All Gold Coast 600 - Race 2 results

 Pos./ Sponsor / Driver / State  1 DecoRug Racing  Paul Stokell  NSW  2 Plan4Growth/ON TIME EARTH Sean Carter  QLD  3 Bruce Lynton MINI Garage  Beric Lynton QLD  4 JAXQuickfit Tyres Chris Alajajian VIC  5 Pizza Capers Glenn Seton VIC  6 Squawking Magpie Wines Gavin Yortt  QLD  7 Betta Computers  Troy Adams  NZ  8 Prosurv Racing   John Modystach QLD 9 iseek    Allan Jarvis QLD  10 Positive Collection Series  Tom Pickett QLD  11 Box & Lock Storage Rob Knight  QLD  12 DecoRug Racing Bill Gremos  QLD  13 Superchare Batteries    Peter McNiven   QLD  14 CXC Dave Thomas NSW  DNF Transquip Hire/ABC Autogear  Brendan Cook  NSW  DNFthesupportersclub.com Chris Wootton QLD