Sandown Park's hotly contested Season 2 of SuperChamps came to an epic conclusion for its sixth and final round on Sunday.

The final round of the championship is in the format of the ever popular R75 (75 laps) with a reverse alternate layout in play, meaning racers were driving backwards round the track, navigating different twists and turns than they're used to.

To add to the drama, racers had to make one fuel stop each. Timing is key in perfecting the pitstop - fuel too early and you might lose momentum, but fuel too late and your kart will be heavier for the final laps.

This Season So Far...

Karlis Elmanis was sitting fairly comfortably at the top of the table for the DMAX Lightweights coming into the final after some consistent racing throughout previous rounds. Tom Brown was hotly on his tail, despite a poor first round. However, both men must have had in mind that drivers get to drop their worst performing round in this Championship, so it mathematically it could still be decided in the final round.

Zakaria Syed was also in the mix to finish in the top three, despite a difficult round three. Ben Richardson had been consistently strong during the season, but didn’t race in the final round, which meant he couldn’t finish higher than fourth. That could pave the way for Archie Bullard and Finley Hart, young contenders who have showed improvement throughout the series, to climb the leaderboard.

George Lewis and Ollie Armiger put in strong performances in the three respective round they raced in, but their lack of participation in two key rounds meant no chance for a podium finish.

In the Heavies, Simon Fuller and Scott Woosey were the two drivers battling it out for the championship. It was decided before the final race that Simon would finish the competition in first place. Alex Tucker was guaranteed to finish in third place. Meanwhile, Jamie Welsh made the decision to race in the DMAXs for the final round, after having already won the SODI Heavies category.

The Final Race

This final race would decide a lot of the championship standings and in truth, the Lights class race was all about Archie Bullard and Finley Hart from the very beginning. The two young racers finished in pole and second in the Super Pole qualifying round and stayed at the front of the pack for the majority of the race.

Kharlis Elmanis qualified in P3, where he remained for a long portion of the beginning of the final race. Hunting him down closely was man-on-a-mission Tom Brown, who was hungry for a final podium finish. Tom quickly moved from P7 to P4. Meanwhile in the Heavies, Jamie and Scott were swapping places back and forth early on.

Charlie Foster made his debut in the DMAXs for this final race, having raced in the SODIs previously, and put in a solid performance throughout, showing he’s ready for this class in the future.

Once the pack had separated a bit, Zakaria Syed and Luka Nik found themselves embroiled in a battle for fourth place. This was Luka’s first-time racing in the DMAX class at SuperChamps.

Meanwhile, Archie Bullard and Finley Hart found themselves way ahead of the pack by Lap 25, taking it in turns to set fastest laps – at this point Archie recording a 46.829 and Finley set 46.866.

In the Heavies, Simon Fuller made the bold decision to pit and refuel early on, meaning he dropped a lap behind and had would be in for a long shift in playing catch up. That paved the way for Scott to lead the race until Lap 36, when he decided to make his mandatory pitstop. A quick and clean pitstop allowed him to join the race still in first place.

Race leader Archie pitted in lap 52 and in his haste found himself in the wrong place, standing in the way of the marshals and slowing down the refuel process, costing him valuable seconds.

Finley had a much cleaner pitstop seven laps later and managed to rejoin the grid still marginally ahead of Archie. The two boys would continue trading spots at the race came into it’s climax. Kharlis was the final person to pit and rejoined the grid slightly ahead of his competitor for the overall title, Tom Brown.

The Archie vs Finley battle went right down to the wire, with Archie finding himself ahead with three laps to go. Finley attempted a few ambitious moves, but Archie showed wonderful defensive execution right down to the last corner, to cross the line in first place, just ahead of Finley.

Kharlis’ victory over Tom Brown in P4 was enough to secure the title as SuperChamps champion – congratulations to him. Tom Brown finished in second place overall.

The third final spot was boldly claimed by the young Zakaria Syed after a fantastic season of racing.

In the Heavies, it finished as anticipated before the round, with Simon Fuller reclaiming his status as champion, with Scott Woosey in P2 and Alex Tucker in third.

Final results:

DMAX Lightweights:

1st - Karlis Elmanis

2nd - Tom Brown

3rd - Zakaria Syed

DMAX Heavyweights:

1st - Simon Fuller

2nd - Scott Woosey

3rd - Alex Tucker

SODI Lightweights:

1st - Luka Nik

2nd - Michael Miao

3rd - Charlie Foster

SODI Heavyweights:

1st - Jamie Welsh

2nd - Jake Pearson

3rd - George Hatto