Evangelista wins Maxxis 4×4 Cup Ormoc leg
Credit to Author: MIKE POTENCIANO| Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2019 16:18:47 +0000
Strong contender Euane Evangelista of Digos 4Wheelers notched his first Maxxis 4×4 Cup win with a thrilling display of extreme driving under monsoon weather in Bantigue, Ormoc City, Leyte on June 22 to 23.
After finishing fifth in the previous leg, Evangelista came back with a vengeance in the eighth leg with a combined time for tracks A, B and C of 16:03.31 (minutes). Second placer and 2019 championship leader Joseph Rodriguez finished a mere 32 seconds off the total time, with 16:35.73.
“I’m very happy,” said first time winner Evangelista right after the Ormoc leg. “I would like to thank the Lord and my teammates for all their support! Got worried at the start, but I am glad I was able to grab the lead in the end.”
The very exciting finish could have gone either way. After qualifying in first place overall in the first day, Rodriguez drew the unlucky position in the final track C on Sunday. What made it worse was heavy rains fell before his run and made the track very challenging and slippery. This spelled the difference, with Evangelista taking the finals 44 seconds ahead of Rodriguez when the track dried considerably.
Local racer Christian Doyon of Ormoc 4Wheelers took the third spot with a combined time of 16:56.50 and was one of the revelations of the event.
Evangelista’s teammate, Erman Veneracion, finished fourth with 17:48:94, while Art Benedict Ong, also of Ormoc 4Wheelers, finished fifth with a time of 17:51.90.
For the Production Class, Pancho Serafica took first place, followed by Romeo Doyon in second, with Eleazar Velarde rounding off the top three.
Despite finishing second, Rodriguez maintained his lead in the 2019 Driver of the Year (DOY) standings with 522 point, followed by Edison Dungca with 446 points.
Evangelista climbed to third from fifth position with 363 points. Derrick Gahite of Manila East Offroaders dropped to fourth with 318 points and Christian Doyon moved to fifth with 310 points. The 2018 Maxxis 4×4 DOY Jherico Lara went down to sixth with 301 points.
The Maxxis 4×4 Cup 2019 8th Leg was organized by Ormoc 4Wheelers with the support of the local government of Ormoc City led by Mayor Richard Gomez and presented by Maxxis Tires Philippines in cooperation with the National Association of Filipino Off-roaders. The ninth leg will be staged this weekend in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.
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