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by Bernard Perera

Dinesh Deheragoda, Romani de Silva and Dilantha Malagamuwa collected maximum points from the stage of the McFoil Challenge Series motor racing held yesterday at Pannala International Race Circuit.

Dinesh drove his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution in an excellent manner to beat all opposition from Dan Dissanayake and Nalin D. Perera in their D & D special and Subaru Caltex Impressa. Dinesh was in full control from the time he saw the green light for the start and sped away from the others.

He kept on increasing the lead while the two drivers Dan and Nalin were seen in a close battle for two runners-up positions. Dinesh was perfect when taking corners and also took the opportunity in the straights to increase the lead. He was thankful to United Motors, his sponsors and the chief mechanic Tilak Bandara for a superb job done to keep the engine to keep up to his class of driving on track of this nature.

Dilantha Melagamuwa was seen as the best rider on this day when proved that he is a classy rider on his pride special 125cc winning the 125 racing event and the racing event for 250cc upto 600cc to collect all possible points for the challenge series in the motor cycles category. He kept all high powered bikes behind him with his dare devil riding which also kept the large crowds that flocked to witness this event spell bound.

Maduranga Caldera who rode a Honda CBR600 was always behind Malagamuwa but failed to catch the leader and also had push back further sixth lap when Donald Bultjens got past him in the right hand corner and he had to content with the third slot.

The Ford Formula event was a complete domination by Romani de Silva. He drove his Formula Vandiemen in complete control for the whole ten laps. In this event Dinesh Jayawardena and Rohan de Silva too had great race when they were seen overtaking each other at several instances but failed to catch up the leader Romani at any stage. Young Dejan de Zoysa too was among the front liners in the few laps but failed to impress at the later stages.

In the Mini Cars event it was Rohith de Silva all the way from the start and went onto collect full points in this class driving his Petro Mini Rover. He had stiff competition coming from experienced drivers K. Balasingham, A. A. Keerthi and Buddhika de Silva. Group A cars event saw Armyman Ravi Mayadunne take honours driving in a field filled with top drivers. Here Sajad Zuhair was in control of the race from the start and held onto the lead till the seventh lap. At this stage he caught up with problems Ravi went ahead and held on though he too had a chaser behind Dhammika Pieris. These were followed by Susantha Priyankarage upto the chequered flag.

Krishan Dias and Maduranga Caldera were two riders who excelled yesterday in the standard modified motor cycle 250cc six lap race and four stroke upto 600cc event. They displayed superb skills on their two wheelers cornering well to thrill the fans.

Mohamed Manaf and Susil Wanniarachchi too registered two victories in the motor cycle category. Samira Fernando won 125cc event for novices riding a Yamaha TZR. Harsha de Silva and Sampath Karunaratne had to face nasty accidents when their formula's crashed during the last lap and their vehicles were badly damaged.

The event for Group A cars had to be stopped after three laps due to a major accident to Kapila Jayasundera's vehicle. The vehicle which got off to a good start turned turtle at first left-hand corner but the race continued for two more laps. As the officials could not move the vehicle from the track they halted the event.

At this stage veteran driver Bri Ponnambalam was a clear leader. When race commenced for the second time Bri Ponnambalam had to finish as second runner-up behind S. Mannapperuma and Javid Wahab.

Three of the scheduled events had to be called off due to problems that was forwarded by few drivers. Rajitha Cooke who entered a westfield for Group M & S upto 1050cc returned the best time on Saturday. The other drivers requested organisers to push him to higher class which Cooke agreed as a sportsman. But when organisers wanted him to drive in a higher class the drivers objected his inclusion and boycotted the event. This resulted in organisers to cut off three events for this class. This was disclosed to the press by unofficial sources.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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