Lyne was the first to stumble upon a three-car crash at the top of Mount Panorama in Heat 2 before he was the victim of a rollover at the start of Heat 3, which was ultimately scratched.
After Adam Poole won the weekend’s opening IPRA Bathurst Cup heat on Friday, the modified production car grid returned for two more heats on Saturday.
In the second of four heats, Tony Moloney spun his then sixth placed Holden VF Commodore at Reid Park and could not be avoided by either Ben Sheedy (VE Commodore) or Jason House (BMW E92).
Lyne narrowly avoided the carnage, sliding his car through the stranded cars.
“Holy moly!” remarked commentator Matt Naulty.
“That was seriously close,” added Brian van de Wakker.
Take the short survey.
“I tell you what, that was lucky we didn’t have even more cars involved.”
Poole took out the shortened Heat 2, ahead of early race leader Adam Garwood in his Monaro, and Chris Brown in the turbo-charged Toyota AE86.
In the third heat, the Nigel Williams VZ Commodore failed to move at the start and was hit by Lyne, whose BMW E30 rolled onto its side.
The race was red-flagged without a lap completed and wasn’t restarted.
Due to track debris on track, the first Prototype Series/Regulator Automation Supersports race started behind the safety car after two laps.
Polesitter Nick Kelly (Wolf Mistral) led from the start before passed by John Paul Drake (Wolf F1 Extreme) who held off his rival for the win. Neale Muston (Radical SR8) started at the rear of the grid and charged through for third.
In the next outing, it was Drake all the way but was only 1.2 seconds ahead of Kelly at the chequered flag. Muston was a distant third as Jason Makris (F1 Extreme) place fourth just in front of Julien Newton (Radical SR10).
There was a delay to the start of the opening Hadley Green Historic Touring Car race when Graeme Walker’s Ford Mustang refused to fire on the grid. Paul Stubber (Chevrolet Camaro) led from the outset, ahead of Brad Tilley and the Harrison brothers Luke and Jack, all in Mustangs.
Oil on the track at Turn 2 caused the Mustangs of Graeme Woolhouse and Greg Toepfer to crash. The rest of the race was behind the safety car.
Race 2 also finished behind the safety car, deployed when the Stephen Page BMW 2002 went into the Turn 1 tyre barrier. Stubber led throughout while Tilley briefly dropped to fourth before he was able to regather to second ahead of Luke Harrison.
There were two races for the Roadservices Australia Circuit Excel. The first saw Joel Johnson overcome and pull away from Ethan Grigg-Gault who finished ahead of Will Twining and Jackson Faulkner. On the opening lap Harry Tomkins was spun into the Dipper wall which caught out Tyler Collins and necessitated a safety car period.
It was a similar four-way fight at the front in Race 2 where Grigg-Gault managed to get to the lead before the safety car came and ultimately ended the race. Johnson was second with Faulkner and Twining the next two as several stranded cars were recovered.
The combined field of Formula RX8 and Nissan Pulsars featured in three races. In each it was Charlie Parker who was the winner. In the first he won ahead of South African Stiaan Kriel and the second Parker beat Ryan Gorton.
The latter was also second in Race 3 which was delay and finished after just two laps due to a crash for Diesel Thomas. Matt Butters was the leading Pulsar, twice ahead of Scott Tidyman and once in front of Chris Manning.
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