ARCHIE JOHNSON INHERITS MAIDEN JCW WIN AT KNOCKHILL

Archie Johnson secured his maiden win in the Power Maxed MINI CHALLENGE after on-the-road victory Harry Campey was hit with a penalty following the second race of the weekend at Knockhill.

EXCELR8 driver Campey had lined up on the second row of the grid for the behind Ned Anthony and Josh Porter, but made up a spot off the line when Porter bogged down on the wet circuit and instead dropped down the order.

Anthony led the way through the opening laps but Campey was quicker behind and saw the opportunity to grab the lead on lap three, with defending champion Tom Ovenden following him through.

The lead pair started to ease away with Campey building a lead over Ovenden, pulling more than six seconds clear as Ovenden started to come under pressure from Sam Gornall, who had risen from eleventh on the grid to third.

Gornall grabbed second from Ovenden before the champion ran off track at Clarks to drop down the order, which instead moved Archie Johnson up into third, with the Jamsport driver having followed the lead set by Gornall by also racing his way through the pack despite the tricky wet conditions.

Campey was untroubled out front as he eased to victory by more than eight seconds, making him the second driver this weekend to score a maiden win following the success of Harry Hickton in race one.

Gornall looked set to take a hard-fought second place but his car suddenly ground to a halt on the final lap with a suspected electrical issue, which promoted Johnson up into second spot and Alex Solley into third.

It meant all three drivers were scoring their first podium finishes of the campaign, but there was to be a twist in the tail when Campey was deemed to have gained an unfair advantage with a move on Solley early on.

He was hit with a two place penalty that dropped him back down to third place, with an appeal against the penalty ultimately failing as Johnson was declared as the winner.

Off the podium, Max Edmundson took fourth place behind his Pro Alloys Racing despite his car losing the front bumper during a mid-race clash at the hairpin as he battled for position – ironically against his Pro Alloys Racing team-mates.

Despite his off-track moment, Ovenden was able to salvage fifth place, with three EXCELR8 cars following behind in the shape of Josh Porter, Hickton and Nathan Edwards.

Although the whole field took to the grid with wet tyres, Charlie Hand, Olivier Algieri and Joe Tanner all dived into the pits at the end of the first green flag lap to switch tyres – with Hand and Algieri going for slicks on the front and wets on the rear, and Tanner going for slicks all round.

For a while before rain intensified, Hand and Algieri were starting to work their way up the order before Hand was forced to retire as a result of a trip off track, and Algieri picked up a track limits penalty that demoted him down to 14th.

Tanner’s decision to go full slicks proved to be the wrong call as he ended up splitting the two Wera Alliance Racing Academy JCW Sport car, with Alfie Garford once again beating team-mate Murray Richardson to victory.