Cane Triumphs at New Jersey
Millville, NJ – Jordan Cane battled his way to the lead and stayed there, fending off challenges throughout the race to take his third straight F1600 Formula F Championship Series win to open the triple-header weekend at New Jersey Motorsports Park. While Cane pulled a gap late in the race for the victory in his Team Pelfrey entry, the battle for the podium was aggressive with Scott Andrews finishing second and Skylar Robinson in third.
“It was a great race,” said Cane of his fourth win of the season. “Scott and I managed to get away at the start. I’m really happy with the result. When you’re not in the pack you need to keep your head down and minimize mistakes.”
While Robinson led from pole in his K-Hill Motorsports Mygale/Honda, it didn’t last for long as the battle for the lead went three wide on lap two, with Cane and Andrews challenging, and the latter taking over the race lead for the time being.
Robinson was shuffled down to fifth as Cane and Andrews began their fight for the lead with Steve Bamford and Ben Auriemma close behind.
By lap six it was Cane in the lead, with Bamford, Andrews, Auriemma and Robert Megennis right there. Soon after, a full course caution would fly for an incident involving Bamford and Megennis, who was reported to have rolled the car and continued.
With the green flag back in the air moments later, Andrews tried an inside move in turn one, and actually made slight contact with Cane, who went high and took the corner and the eventual race win pulling a rare lead out on the field in the closing stages of the late Saturday afternoon event.
As Cane was building up his margin, the eyes turned to the fight for second, with Auriemma spinning on the last lap after contact with Robinson while Andrews powered through to hold off Robinson for second.
“It was a really tough race out there, but it was a fun race,” said Andrews, in the No. 94 Spectrum/Honda. “Jordan and I made a little bit of contact going into turn one, we were going for the same piece of real estate and I was aggressive. I didn’t want to give it up.”
“I accidently hit Ben on the last lap, I missed a shift in the middle of the corner, that was my bad,” said Robinson. “It was really impressive racing. The new car has been quick all weekend.”
Thomas McGregor advanced to finish fourth, running as low as eighth during the race, while Jim Goughary was opportunistic, winning the Masters Class with a fifth place finish.
“It’s tough, all these guys are so fast, you really need to be on top of it to move forward,” added Goughary, who drives the No. 7 Primus Racing Van Diemen/Honda.
Will Harvey was another driver that stayed out of trouble to bank a nice result, coming to the line in sixth, ahead of Austin Mack.
Megennis and Bamford, despite the early-race incident, still finish eighth and ninth. Cameron Das was 10th in his F1600 Series debut for K-Hill.
Full results are available on www.F1600Series.com under the Results tab.
The action heats up on Sunday at NJMP with two F1600 Formula F Championship Series races scheduled, rounds 17 and 18 of the season.