Tom Boyd managed to pull off a spectacular first-to-last-to-first victory at the 2016 NASA Western States Championships at Buttonwillow Raceway. The race, consisting of two double-yellow flags, was full of ups and downs for the entire Thunder Roadster field.
“It’s been a rough weekend for me.” said Tom Boyd, “I qualified toward the back. I managed to get the lead on the third lap and then David Standridge took me three-wide into Turn 1. You just don’t do that into Turn 1, and it ended up wadding us all up. My competitor hit me and several other cars ran into us. I limped it around and my hood was flying in the air. I thought for sure it was going to fly off so I stopped and I had a safety worker try to tape it down but it didn’t work. I thought I was going to lose the hood. I just persevered and kept the throttle in, almost got in a couple of wrecks, but apparently Dave Standridge had his wheel fall off. I guess karma got him. It’s been fun racing today and the whole weekend. This just tops off the year. We are the champion of the whole INEX division and this tops off our season with the win at the nationals.”
Starting from pole position, David Standridge held onto the lead for three laps before he was passed by Tom Boyd. Then, following an incident between the two, he managed to come out as the leader before having a tire failure a few turns before the checkered flag and being forced to settle for second place.
“It was a great race. We went back and forth a couple of times and it was really close racing,” said Standridge. “It wasn’t until we got at the end of the back straight and I got a gap. After then I had a gap and all I needed to do was finish the race, but on the last lap on the third-to-last corner my left front spindle broke. So all I had to do was basically coast it in for the win, but the car let me down. I had already replaced the right front spindle, but I did not replace the left front spindle. I had thought about replacing it, and I have an extra one, too, so in retrospect, it was my fault”
Jeffery Awender had to retire after only three laps due to an oil fire, thus Brian Gibson managed to get third place in spite of not finishing the race.
