By Scott Beattie
PERTH, Australia — Saturday at the Perth Motorplex Kye Blight showed that a bit of racing rust meant absolutely nothing, his pure talent on show as he led every lap of the forty lap feature race to be crowned the new Australian Late Model champion.
Blight was strong across the weekend and did enough to qualify himself on the front row for the main event alongside Brent Vosbergen.
At the initial start Blight and Vosbergen went side by side, Blight running his now famous highline while Vosbergen circulated low.
Blight clears out quickly while American visitor Myles Moos raced around Vosbergen to take second.
It took hardly any time for Blight and Moos to pull well clear of the rest of the field, and on lap five Moos had a look on the inside of Blight but was unable to make a move stick.
Lapped traffic came up quickly, a wall of cars greeting the lead two.
The duo dipped and dived, Moos channeling his inner Blight and running up high sending sparks flying through turn two.
Behind them Brad Blake and defending champion Joe Chalmers were battling for fourth.
With 10 laps complete Blight had a small break but Moos was right there and ready to capitalize on any mistake through traffic.
It almost all came undone for both of them shortly after: as Blight went under Veronica McCann to put her a lap down and ended up just cutting her nose off. She turned to avoid contact and Moos touched the back of her and spun to a stop to bring out the yellows.
All were reinstated in their positions for the restart, Blight to lead away Moos, Vosbergen, Chalmers and Blake.Blight got away on the restart, Moos chasing hard, Vosbergen running by himself while Blake was desperately trying to get back by Chalmers for fourth.
Chalmers and Blake closed on Vosbergen, Chalmers low and Vosbergen high, Blake waiting for either to make a mistake but the yellows came on as Todd Bayley spun to a stop in turn four.
Vosbergen put pressure on Moos on the restart but it didn’t last long, Blight and Moos again pulling away to another huge gap.
Quickly they were into lapped traffic again, while behind them the battle was still raging. With 10 to go Jamie Oldfield had worked into third ahead of Kodee Brown who had also raced through into fourth.
Blight split the seam and Moos began to fall into the clutches of Oldfield, all the while fighting lapped traffic.
The yellows came out with a few to go as Brendan Hucker found himself buried in the turn two wall and on the restart Blight was simply alone as behind him Moos went high and Jamie low.
Chalmers also fought back on the restart and got by Brown for fourth, diving under Jamie for third but it didn’t quite pay off and he was forced to fend off the advances of Brown again.
With five to go the field began to spread out with Blight going on to claim his second championship, crossing the line ahead of Moos and Oldfield while Joe Chalmers and Kodee Brown.
Feature (40 laps): 1. Kye Blight, 2. Myles Moos, 3. Jamie Oldfield, 4. Joe Chalmers, 5. Kodee Brown, 6. Brad Blake, 7. Brent Vosbergen, 8. Luke Halliday, 9. Todd Bayley, 10. Jason Oldfield, 11. Veronica McCann, 12. Craig Vosbergen, 13. Lachlan Onley, 14. Jacob Croker, 15. Callum Harper, 16. Jay Cardy, 17. Rod Musarra, 18. Darren Kane, 19. Beau Oldfield. DNF: Ben Nicastri (33), Brendan Hucker (33), Warren Oldfield (28), Joe Godsey (20), Brad Smith (13). Total Time: NTT. Winning Margin: 0.904. Fastest Lap: 15.927, Kye Blight.
