20 cars took the start of the opening round for the Winter 2010 Trophy Series, Thomas Cazorla bought the field to the green flag, the Frenchman taking his second career pole in only his fourth V8Thunder start.

An early yellow on Lap 10 was followed by a 59 green flag run, this including 2 green flag stops which spread out the field and caused quiet a stir with Mathieu Souphy and Chris Hill both spinning on entry and Ian Smiff, Andrew Jones and Jim Turner all having to serve drive through penalties for speeding on pit lane.

Lap 69 bought out the second caution, approaching the pits were the lap down cars of Ian Smiff and Stephen Jones, along with race leader Jack Keithley. Keithley missed his braking point and to avoid ramming Smiff spun his car into the inside wall, at the same time Jones also lost it spinning back onto the racing surface where he was collected by the #04 of John McGraw. Smiff became the main benefactor, as the caution was thrown just before he hit pit lane the Englishman aborted his stop and drove through the infield grass to get himself back onto the lead lap.

The race was restarted on lap 73 with Chris Hill leading from Paulo Rocha second, Sergey Rebrov third, Thomas Cazorla fourth, George Sokolowski fifth and Smiff in sixth with 23 laps left it was going to be hard for anybody to make it on fuel and it virtually guaranteed that another set of stop would be required.

Smiff was first to blink and "rolled the dice" by hitting pit lane on lap 80 he came out a few seconds ahead of the pack on the tail end of the lead lap, but on lap 84 the gamble paid off when the caution came out for the third time when Cazorla and Stephen Jones got together in turn 1. With all the other lead lap cars needing to pit, Smiff stayed out and inherited the lead to which he'd not be dethroned from in the 9 lap sprint to the flag, taking his seventh career and first Superspeedway win at V8Thunder. "CJ" Hill followed his fellow Southern Counties resident home in second, with pole man Thomas Cazorla third, Paulo Rocha fourth, Sergey Rebrov fifth and "Gentleman" George Sokolowski rounding out the top 6.

V8Thunder goes from the high banked, high speed Daytona to the "Lady in Black" next week at Darlington, there was no "big one" at Daytona despite a large 20 car field - will the Lady in Black be in a bad or good mood for out intrepid racers....? only time will tell.

Chris Hill made up for a dismal season in Inters by taking victory in the V8 Thunder World Championship showdown at Martinsville today.

Hill dominated the event with a victory in Heat 1 followed up by a second behind series rookie Paul Taylor in Heat 2.

In the final it was all about a battle between Hill and SRD team-mate Mathieu Souphy with Hill thwarting a last lap challenge from the Belgium to win by 6 tenths of a second.

Heat 2 winner Taylor was relieved of third in the final early on by Ian Smiff, who eventually finished third after 2 spins, with Jay Owen 4th, series rookie John McGraw 5th and Lites Series runner up Mike Cooper rounding out the top 6.

The next Trophy event is the non-championship race at Daytona International Speedway next Thursday.

Despite having to retire from the Phoenix race, Caspar Kahari of vMaxSR has been confirmed as the Summer 2007 series champion. With one round remaining, his 296 point lead over Steve Smith is enough to wrap up the title. With five wins this season, including back-to-back wins at Rockingham and EuroSpeedway and Darlington and Texas, there can be no doubt that he is a deserving champion.

In a double celebration for vMaxSR, its Alpha squad has also secured the team title - the first time it has won the top prize in Trophy.

Lefteris Papaulakis won the Trophy race at Atlanta, and in doing so became the winningest driver in the series this season. However, as a result of missing so many races in the middle of the season, the championship is not the possibility it should have been. Team-mate Caspar Kahari finished 2nd to extend his lead over Steve Smith. The other podium finisher was Mathieu Souphy - an impressive lead lap performance in only his second race in the series.

All in all, it was a fun race, with just one yellow early on. It is unlikely Darlington will be so kind to the series director next week...

Tonight's race saw the return to standard weather in Trophy, a controversial decision by the admins designed to increase starting grids. With ten starters, it is fair to say that the jury is still out.

With championship leader Caspar Kahari missing, this was a chance for others to shine. Marc van Brakel was doing just that, and was well on his way to a first series win when his engine blew. This left Steve Smith, Simon Topham and Peter Andersson battling for the win, and with the drivers using different strategies during the final seventy-five lap green run, the winner of the race was not certain untl the chequered flag.

First across the line was Smith, his first Trophy win, and also a first for Team Ecosse! Topham came within a second of his first series win, while Andersson finished third after a pitting error. All in all, a good event.

Team Shark's Peter Andersson became the seventh winner from eight Trophy races this season at a hot and sunny California track, and in doing so has given himself a healthy lead at the top of the independent standings. On the podium with him were the Team Ecosse pairing of Steve Smith and Alan Strang.

An unlikely result, then, and all three drivers benefited from the misfortune of others. Indeed, there had been so much misfortune that they were the only drivers running at the end!

A special mention must be given to SRD International's Marc van Brakel, who started the race on pole and was looking good for his first Trophy win until his engine expired twenty laps from home.