By Adam Hamilton<\/p>\n
Kiwi ace Zachary Butcher knows he will return home a better driver for his first tilt at the Ladbrokes Ultimate Driver Championship at Albion Park.<\/p>\n
Butcher finished in 10th spot behind Australian young gun James Herbertson, who thrashed a world class line-up in the 20-race series.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a privilege to be in it. I was chuffed,\u201d he said. \u201cGee the competition was hot. They were a great group of drivers and an amazing array of talent,” said Butcher .<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll learn so much from it. To be out there amongst that, see the great things some of them do, it\u2019ll make me a better driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m desperate to come back and have another crack at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herbertson, 25, acknowledged the late Greg Sugars after his win.<\/p>\n
Sugars, who had been the biggest influence on Herbertson\u2019s career, died in his sleep aged 40 in April, last year.<\/p>\n
This time last year, when Herbertson was emergency for the series, he and Sugars watched the series together at Albion Park and so wanted to be part of it.<\/p>\n
Part in honour of Sugars, a champion driver with over 4000 career wins, Herbertson returned this weekend and toyed with nine elite rivals to win the $350,000 Ultimate Driver Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost my best mate and I\u2019ve been able to go and win races around the world and pick up a couple of things along the way, including this,\u201d Herbertson said. \u201cThis is pretty cool. It\u2019s something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crown capped a remarkable 12 months in the sulky for Herbertson.<\/p>\n
Last year he created history by being the only driver to win the Australian Drivers\u2019 Championship and Australasian Young Drivers\u2019 Championship in the same season.<\/p>\n
He also romped to his second successive Australian Drivers\u2019 Premiership with a 83-win margin over Queensland\u2019s Nathan Dawson, despite spending almost two months travelling through Europe and the US.<\/p>\n
During his travels, Herberton drove winners in the US and Sweden.<\/p>\n
He was in hot demand during his time in the US and most expect he will move across to continue his career in the US next year.<\/p>\n
Last night\u2019s win will further enhance his profile and reputation globally given the beaten brigade included five-time champion Canadian driver James MacDonald, who many say is the best driver in the world.<\/p>\n
Butcher was in awe of Herbertson\u2019s dominance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a special talent, a bit of a freak really,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can see he\u2019s really going places.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herbertson finished the first 10 heats on night one (Friday) with a nine-point lead and effectively cemented the crown when he won the opening race of night two.<\/p>\n
He won six of the 20 races in the series, two more than Angus Garrard did last year, and won by a staggering 52 points over defending champion Garrard and last year\u2019s runner-up, Gary Hall Jr.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty surreal. It’s why I’m in the game. My mum and dad, they couldn’t make it tonight, and all my family, without them I wouldn’t be here. They got me started in the game and I owe it all to them,” Herbertson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just such a fantastic concept. I\u2019m here holding the trophy, but it\u2019s been such a team effort. Ryan (Spice) did such a great job picking the right horses for me in the draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
“You’ve got people from all walks of life in the biggest slot (The Herb Factor slot) of all of them. Great people who have backed me from early on and have backed me the last couple of years and it’s just great. You can’t ask for much more. It\u2019s what harness racing is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
ULTIMATE DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP \u2013 FINAL STANDINGS<\/p>\n
194 James Herbertson (Vic)
142 Angus Garrard (Qld), Gary Hall Jr (WA)
138 Cam Hart (NSW)
127 Pete McMullen (Qld)
119 Robbie Morris (NSW)
117 Luke McCarthy (NSW)
115 James MacDonald (Canada)
103 Trista Dixon (Qld)
102 Zachary Butcher (NZ)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Adam Hamilton Kiwi ace Zachary Butcher knows he will return home a better driver for his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-296861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}