Sarah Cornett-Ching Rallies Top Ten Finish Despite a Last Lap Tangle.

By Sarah Cornett-Ching

Flourishing young driver, Sarah Cornett-Ching  turned heads with her performance at Motoplex Speedway in Vernon, BC last weekend. She was the only female and the youngest competitor in the field in her debut in the ASA series.

Sarah posted a quick time in first practice placing her 4th quickest of 20 cars, and garnering a great deal of attention from her fellow competitors. Her qualifying lap left a lot to be desired with a car on the loose side placing her 9th in the field. 

Sarah started on the outside in the second row of the A heat race but was held on the outside lane by a slower car until rest of the field filed under her. She tailed onto the inside lane and began picking cars off one at a time, by the end of the heat race Sarah had managed to work her way up to 6th spot. 

Again in the main event Sarah started on the outside groove and on lap one narrowly avoided a spinning car two rows up. The field was reset because they had yet to complete a lap, and it wasn't long before three cars spread across the entry to turn one brought out the second caution. Cornett-Ching was hard on the brakes, and luckily one of the cars began sliding down the track giving her a lane to steer clear of a pile up. 

From there to lap 110 Sarah maintained a consistent lap time and began passing cars and moving up through the field. Unfortunately she came up on two cars that raced side by side for several laps slowing her lap times considerably. When given the chance she pulled out and made the pass on the first car, as she did the caution flew and they were put back to the last completed lap forcing Sarah relinquish the position she had just made.

With 11 laps to go there were 7 lapped cars between Sarah in 7th position and the leaders, when the race restarted she waited patiently worked her way through the lapped traffic and then began to make her move on the 6th and 5th place cars.

She easily passed the 6th place car and set her sights on the next position. Sarah had gotten the nose of the car underneath the 5th place car but as backed out a few times due to his threatening loose condition. With two laps to go Cornett-Ching made a crossover move that landed her door to door with the 5th place car. As she began to accelerate down the back straightaway, he side slapped her car cutting down the RF tire. Coming around to the white flag on a flat tire Sarah made the decision that she was still going to finish the race. She limped the car around to take the checkered flag incredibly not losing a lap and hanging on for an 8th place finish.

" It was a disappointing end to such a successful day" Said the exasperated youngster after her first 125 lap race. " We had a great car and I think we were able to showcase that, just couldn't bring home the top 5 finish we had worked towards all night" 

Sarah's next race is June 18th at PGARA Speedway in Prince George, BC,