Finals of Ukrainian Road Racing Championship took place at the former military airport on the outskirts of Poltava. M.Cherednichenko had clinched the title of champion in the class and three pilots: V. Marchenko, R. Serov and S. Yunashev all at once laid a claim to the remaining two medal places. Beautiful autumn weather, interesting museum of aviation both contributed to the good determination for the race. Sure enough, the spectators were blessed with the outright Battle of Poltava on Saturday! Class Lada -1600 races were like a present for the fans. Rivalries had already started in training. If Ruslan Serov was ahead of the game in the beginning, later he was replaced by Andrey Melnik. However, Nikolay Ponedelnik was the one to win pole position.
On second thoughts, Serov was most successful on the start. Ponedelnik took a third place, trailing Marchenko. These pilots continued to maintain a very close gap between each other and soon Melnik drew closer to them as well. Some time this top quartet raced in trail one after the other, but Serov was still able to secure a lead however small. It had been possible du to both the speed of Ruslan and that battle, which Marchenko, Ponedelnik and Melnik unleased in his wake. Nikolay repeatedly rushed Vladimir, but immediately found himself under pressure from Andrey. So it went from one lap to another.
Vladimir’s defense was just impeccable, but the most important thing was that that entire contest took place without any collision! A slip of Ponedelnik put the triple contest to rest – his car made a U-turn and collided with a metal fender of the track. Collision resulted into only minor cosmetic damage, and Ponedelnik returned to the race with the 6th place, while Melnik took that opportunity to ourace Vladimir. Thus Marchenko finished the race at the third place.
The second part of the Battle of Poltava was ahead!
Following Saturday’s race Vladimir Marchenko and Ruslan Serov had equal number points i.e/ 64 after the subtraction of the two worst performance indices! In fact, the one who would have finished ahead of his counterpart regardless of the place, he would also took a “silver medal” for the year.
Vladimir’s false start and a 20 second penalty for him, which further complicated his tough struggle for victory had added some serious drama to the vice-champion game. In order to obtain the title of vice- champion he had to finish ahead of Serov, and leave the nearest rival behind by more than 20 seconds.
Serov as the winner of the previous day started from the 6th place and after a while led the peloton; while Marchenko starting from the 4th place, also outflanked a rival and began to pursue Ponedelnik trailing Serov. The leading trio resulted into a real rivalry, albeit only of nerves for the time being. Rivals had a very close gap between their cars, but after 10 minutes of the race the exhaust pipe of Serov’s Kalina started to emit more and more of treacherous blue-grey smoke. Ruslan’s car engine started to misfire and Ponedelnik was able to outrace him. However, Marchenko was still behind, which meant that Serov would have kept a vice-champion title for a while.
Serov’s defense gave way to Vladimir v after another 10 minutes, and following another half-lap Ruslan’s car sputtered out at the side of the track: drive gear breakage was to blame. Finishing in the second place and leaving the nearest rival behind by 26 seconds, Vladimir Marchenko secured a “silver” for the year.
Cup of Ukraine series and close of the road racing season in 2013 shall take place on October 26 at the Sport-complex Chayka in Kiev.
