Winton Super Series Day 2 Wrap
It was a day of non-stop action at the ‘Nation’s Action Track,’ with all categories getting to have at least one race today.
TA2 Muscle Car Series
TA2 Muscle Car Series leader Josh Haynes had a perfect day in the office, he took pole position in the Top 10 Shootout, and converted that into another victory.
His closest title rival Brad Gartner closed in late in the race and was within touching distance when the 10-lap race concluded. Despite coming home strong Gartner could not get by Haynes and finished only 0.61s back.
Joshua Thomas converted his best qualifying position of the season, a p3, into a top three finish. The TFH Hire Services Mustang finished over 15s behind Gartner.
Mark Bailey ended up in fourth place ahead of fellow Mark, Mark Crutcher, Graham Cheney and John Holliger, all four were within 1.5s in a great fight for fourth.
Aaron Prosser was in the fight as well, however an unforced error exiting Turn 3 saw him spin into the infield. He ended up in 18th, last of the finishers.
Des Collier was eighth ahead of Jason Pryde.
A lot of talk coming into the weekend was about Speedway legend Robbie Farr. The Hi-Tec Oils sponsored driver had never raced a car on tarmac until today, impressively he finished inside the top 10.
Damain Ramsay, Brett Niall, Danny Reidy, Paul Hadley, Cam Sendall and Steve Coulter were next.
Hayden Jackson fell down the order with a gearbox issue and finished in 17th place.
Legend Cars Australia
We were spoilt today with not one, but two Legend Cars Australia races, both of which were won by Robert Hogan.
Hogan led every single lap in both races; however, he did not waltz off into the distance. The chasing pack were never too far away.
In Race 1, the fight between second and fifth was covered by less than a second. In the end things went the way of Brendon Hourigan, he pipped Billy Finnegan to the line by a margin of just 0.14s.
Ryan Pring of the Australian Capital Territory was fourth ahead of Shane Tate.
Ben Goodridge, Aidan Williams, Scott Melville and Askr Sendall rounded out the top 10 in the first eight lap encounter.
Despite not winning the second race, Finnegan responded to finish in second in what was, this time, a five-car scrap for second, 1.7s is all that separated the drivers at the end of the race.
Australian Capital Territory driver Pring was next ahead of Tate, Goodridge and Williams.
Scott Morgan and Lincoln Pope moved into the top 10, in eighth and ninth respectively. Sendall rounded out the top five.
Formula RX8
After clean sweeping the last two rounds, Brock Paine is not letting up at all, the Queenslander took yet another win at Winton Motor Raceway today.
“The Rocket” converted pole position into victory, however today he won by just 1.8s, a small margin by his lofty standards.
Geoff Connell has been his closest challenger so far this weekend, he qualified just a couple of tenths behind and finished in second.
Rob Boaden was fed up with finishing second, but instead he finished third. He tried to limit the damage to his championship rival Boaden, he wanted to finish in second, despite his best efforts he came up just 0.3s shy, unable to find a way past.
South Australian Ivan Vantagiato ended up in fourth position, he himself was only 0.5s clear of Steve Devjak in fifth.
Diesal Thomas, Ayrton Fillipi, Thomas Derwent, Victorian Liam Hall and Joshua Thomas rounded out the top 10. Notably all 22 that started, finished, in what was a record number of cars entered into that category.
Australian Super TT
Victories were shared between Matt Sims in his BMW E36 and Glen Postlethwaite driving a VY Commodore on Saturday.
Sims ran away with it in Race 1, he was on another planet, taking the win by 22s.
Postlethwaite came home in second just 1.7s clear of the rest of the pack.
Series regular Cory Gillett finished third in his Nissan S13, while fourth outright went the way of Over 2L Treaded driver Ryan Bell, while fifth went to the Under 2L class winner Michael Ricketts in his much-improved Nissan Pulsar.
With Pulsars, Mustangs and Clios in the next few places, there was certainly variety.
Race 2 was a dramatic affair, Ryan Bell led it right up until the final lap. However, it all went away.
This allowed Postlethwaite and Sims to get by and fight it out for the outright win. In the end Postlethwaite was able to keep Sims at bay, but only by 0.4s.
Bell came home a disappointed third, ahead of veterans Gillet and Brent Edwards who marched back into the top 10, to finish fifth.
Australian Excel Series
It may have been short on numbers, but not action. In the Australian Excel Series we had three states represented in the top three positions.
By less than half a second Blake Tracey of New South Wales held on to take the race victory, from Queenslander Matthew Boylett.
The best local Victorian was third, Brad Vereker 6.7s back in third place.
Caleb Peterson and Victorian Toby Waghorn rounded out the top five from Sam McLaren, Tyler Collins, Caleb Hefren, Joshua Richards and Edward Mitchell.
Superkarts
Due to the extreme numbers, the Superkarts have been split into three separate races.
Race 1 for Rotax Max went to lightweight competitor Russ Occhipinti in what was the closest finish of the day. Occhipinti won the race and his class by 0.038s, with Kiwi Tyler Edney in second.
The heavy class was won by 0.2s, Colin McIntyre pipping Johnathon Twigden. Cameron Austen won Super Heavy.
Race 2 was for 125cc Gearbox karts and Stock Hondas. Bradley Tremain beat home Lee Vella by just under 0.5s, with Brad Stebbing over a 10s further back. Stock Honda was dominated by James Strah.
The 250cc karts are the fastest of the weekend, the 250cc National, and the even faster International.
Brett Burvill beat Marcel Moreno in a WA 1-2 in the national category. 125cc International saw Nicholas Schembri prevail ahead of Ilya Harpas and Tim Clarke.
On-track action starts tomorrow at 8.30am, with the livestream commencing at 10am, this can be viewed here - www.youtube.com/@superseries.official
Coverage on SBS, Fox Sports, Kayo and Sky Sports NZ starts at 1pm AEST.
Event information: www.hi-tecoilssuperseries.au/rd-5-winton-raceway-oct-4-6