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Sports Oakville Beaver www.aplushomes.ca Adam Campbell 905-844-4444 R E A L T YC O R P. B R O K E R A G E I N D E P E N D E N T LY O W N E D A N D O P E R AT E D Broker of Record SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2010 25 PHOTOS BY GRAHAM PAINE / OAKVILLE BEAVER TRACK STAR: Local race car driver James Hinchcliffe finished 10th at Sunday's Firestone Indy Lights Series stop in Toronto. In left photo, Hinchcliffe rounds Turn 9 of the Exhibition Place course. In right photo, Hinchcliffe ponders what went wrong in a post-race interview. Last-lap crash ends Hinchcliffe's championship dreams at Indy For all but one lap of Sunday's Firestone Indy Lights Series stop in Toronto, it looked like James Hinchliffe's latest homecoming might have a happy ending. But the Oakville Trafalgar grad's championship dreams ended on the 50th and final lap of the race, when a loose entry into Turn 3 led to a crash into the tire barriers on Turn 5. The crash resulted in a 10th-place finish for Hinchcliffe in the 15-car undercard to the Honda Indy Toronto at Exhibition Place. "It's gutting," Hinchcliffe told reporters afterwards. "To go from a second or a third place to a 10th place in one lap -- on the last lap -- it's a huge kick in the groin." Hinchcliffe started Sunday's race from the outside pole position after finishing second in Saturday's qualifying. He hoped to pass France's J.K. Vernay, the series points leader who was first in qualifying, before the first turn, but was unable to. Hinchcliffe spent the next 49 laps in chase of Vernay, waiting for the right opportunity to pass but never making a serious attempt to move into first. On the final lap, Hinchcliffe went for the lead and appeared to miss his braking point. Two drivers passed him on Turn 3 and he brushed into American Charlie Kimball, sending Hinchcliffe into the tire wall two turns later. "We just didn't have the package today," Hinchcliffe said. "I was nursing my tires for the last 20 laps with the car a handful on each and every one with no rear grip. Obviously, ending the day in the tire barrier was unfortunate, but I put no blame Charlie's way. It was just a racing thing." The 10th-place finish was extremely damaging to Hinchcliffe's hopes of winning the series championship. Vernay now has 295 points on the campaign, with Hinchcliffe a distant second with 227. Kimball is third with 220 points. "The title is really now J.K. Vernay's to lose. We just have to go for wins and really put together an aggressive strategy for the rest of the season," Hinchcliffe said. "We want to prove we can win again and there's not much point just playing for points. We've really got to push in every single remaining race." Hinchcliffe will be racing on Canadian soil again this weekend as the Firestone Indy Lights Series moves to Edmonton for Round 8 of the 13-round series. Angels bow out in tiebreaker Last weekend's bantam tier 1 girls' softball provincials at Trafalgar Park were extremely competitive. Perhaps a little too competitive, if you ask the Oakville Angels. Despite tying for first place in their pool, the Angels were eliminated after the preliminary round. Oakville went 2-2 in round-robin play, but so did the other four teams in its pool. With only the top two teams in each pool advancing to the playoffs, organizers had to break the tie by looking at each team's run differential. The Angels were plus-3 in their four games, but Brantford and Halton Hills advanced with plus-4 differentials. Two teams from the other pool, Guelph and Ajax, would eventually meet in the championship game, with Guelph coming out on top. Both teams advance to this year's national championship tournament. Oakville lost its opening game 8-7 to Brantford, then beat a different Guelph entry 4-0 and blanked Halton Hills 1-0. In their final round-robin game, the Angels dropped an extra-inning 4-3 decision to Whitby. The Angels did earn a berth in this year's Ontario Summer Games, however, by finishing among the top seven teams at provincials. TOUGH TOURNEY: Alex Sagl of the Oakville Angels celebrates her home run in the opening game of last weekend's bantam tier 1 girls' softball provincials at Trafalgar Park. The Angels were eliminated after the preliminary round despite going 2-2. NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER