Great results for Speed Car at the first round of the 2017 Spanish Autocross Championship, held on the 11th and 12th of March at the Motorland circuit. The drivers of the Industrias Lahoz-built cars scored a one-two in the Car Cross category, won by Juan José Moll ahead of Jordi Puigvert, they also won in the Junior category, with Joan Salichs, who shared the podium with Ares Lahoz, in third position, and they took yet another podium result in Division III thanks to the second position of Juanjo Aranda.
Juan José Aranda began yet another season among the fastest contenders in Division III with his Speed Car TTR. The Barcelona-born driver set the sixth best time in the qualifying session and showed his true pace in the heats with two wins and a second position to secure the pole-position for the final.
In the race, Aranda was in the battle for the win throughout the ten laps to finally take the chequered flag in second position, less than four seconds behind the winner and way ahead of the third placed car.
With eight Xtrems amongst the thirty-eight entrants at Motorland, four among the fifteen were to race in the final, and two of them finishing in the two first positions, the Car Cross model of Speed Car once again showed its speed at the beginning of yet another season in the Spanish Championship.
The win, at the first round of the year, for Juan José Moll meant starting his title defence in the best possible way. The Escudería Mollerusa driver crossed the finish line ahead of his brand mate at Speed Car, Jordi Puigvert, who started from pole position thanks to his results in the heats.
The classificatory races were fully dominated by the Xtrems, with six wins between Puigvert, Moll and David Casadevall, who ended up the final in sixth position after being hit by a false start penalty, spoiling a very likely treble for the Car Cross built by Industrias Lahoz.
The fourth Speed Car in the final was the driven by Joaquín Fontán, who crossed the finish line in 14th position.
The category for the younger autocross drivers is on a high. At Motorland there were fifteen entrants, a third of them at the wheel of the Speed Car Xtrem with two finishing on the podium with the race being won by Joan Salichs and Ares Lahoz in third.
Joan set the fifth best time in the qualifying session and was third on the grid after one win, a second and a third position in the heats. From his slot on the front row, the driver of the #5 Speed Car got through to the lead and won the race by a margin of almost ten seconds from the second placed driver.
He shared the podium with Ares Lahoz, who finished third after starting from sixth position after a third and two fourth places in the heats.
The third driver in an Xtrem to complete in the final was Pol Catalá, who finished eighth, one place ahead of Josep Arqué, classified ninth because of a false start and a drive-through that kept him out of the fight for the top positions.
The fifth driver of a Speed Car in the Junior category was Eduardo Bañeres, who completed the presence of the Xtrems with a fifteenth position.
