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1998 was a major year of growth for the club,
Garry Evans was now a regular and they welcomed TQ
midget competitors, Mark Christiano and Dick
Mahoney along with micro-sprint competitor Les
MacMillan. The series also expanded from 6 races
to 11. Once again the championship would be
decided in the final race of the season with Evans
proving to be a quick study by capturing the
championship. Evans was able to withstand the
pressure of Joel Lehman as the "Guelph
Storm" once again came up just a little short
Matt Fortner came home 3rd in the standings.
Fortner's hopes for the title were dashed when the
finale was rained out the first night, the race
was held the following evening but Fortner had
previous commitments and was forced to miss the
race.
Lehman let everybody know he meant business by
winning the first two rounds of the series and
looked to be unstoppable...until along came Mike
Ling. Ling reeled off an impressive string of 6
races that saw him finish no worse than 2nd with 4
of those finishes being victories. Jerry Whitney
and ESS standout Mike Stelter were the only two
drivers to beat Ling on the race track all season.
With the points chase tightening up Evans showed
his hand by capturing his first career feature win
at South Buxton. As tough as the top 3 drivers
were, they were no match for Stelter in the final
two races as he took both feature victories to
close out the season.
Although he was technically a rookie, Evans
elected not to receive the Rookie of the Year
title and it was given instead to Dick Mahoney.
Mahoney was certainly a deserving winner, the
veteran of the midget TQ wars came within one
corner of his 1st feature win when Ling made a
bonsai pass to take the win. Later in the season
Mahoney was leading the feature at Brighton when
at the mid-point of the race the engine quit.
1998 was the final season of driving for Lambeth,
ON native Rick Burt. Burt had been a consistent
runner but chose to hang up the helmet and placed
young gun Ryan Coniam behind the wheel of the #6
for the 1999 season. |
