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The final night of Chariots of Thunder is evidence that Jock Goodyer will be the man to beat when the new season of Sprintcar racing arrives in the southern states this summer.
Goodyer was sensational across the event and took the Chariots of Thunder title with his third consecutive win at Northline Speedway.
Earlier in the night, the heats got underway in front of the biggest crowd of the series.
Heat winners included Night 1 winner Brock Hallett in the #Q5, Goodyer, Callum Williamson (who picked up his fourth heat race win of the series) and local hero Ben Atkinson Junior in the #D2.
A change to the format on the final night saw the Dash race shelved for a Pole Shuffle, with the top eight racers to face two at a time for a two-lap sprint, with the winner staying on track to take on the next contender.
The finishing positions in the shuffle determined the starting positions in the Feature, and it was no surprise to see Hallett and Goodyer in the race off for pole, with the victory going to Goodyer after engine troubles for Hallett.
Engine changes were the story in the pits with the GW Racing team of Brock Hallett swinging into action to change an engine, as did the #D2 team of Ben Atkinson Jnr.
The last chance for any drivers not already locked into the feature would be the B-Main, with 19 cars to take the starters orders.
Adam Garwood started from the second row but was electric from the start, moving to the lead almost immediately.
He was working his way through lapped traffic, with almost a one-second lead over Jason Pryde until he drifted slightly high, catching the right rear tyre into the wall which turned the car hard right and into a vicious tumble, fortunately being able to walk away albeit visibly disappointed.
Once the race re-started, it was straightforward with no further cautions, with the transfer positions to the feature race being Jason Pryde, Todd Moule (after a big crash the night before), Jack Crossin and Hayden Brown.
Jock Goodyer was off the pole courtesy of the Shuffle win, alongside Brock Hallet who had his own dramas forcing and engine change before the feature.
Goodyer was offered the chance, as is tradition for the pole-sitter on the final night, to take the Pope Challenge; that is, to start from the rear of the grid in return for an additional $30,000 if he could convert it to a victory in the 30-lap affair.
To the disappointment of the local fans, Goodyer did not take the challenge- instead choosing the relative security of the front row start.
The first phase of the race was relatively uneventful, with the low line being the preferred position on the track after the pre feature track work.
Goodyer was superb, building a two-second advantage over Hallett and Chad Ely in the SA98 with 23 laps to run.
The track evolved very differently to prior nights, with Matt Egel making the top of the track work until finding a developing rut which sent the car into the outside Turn 4 wall and up and over.
The can ended in an awkward position, with the tail tank of the car hooked on the catch fencing and considerable repairs required to the fence before the race resumed.
Egel was scathing in his assessment of the incident, having not finished off the podium in any of the prior nights racing saying, “The car just got really soft in the right rear, obviously all the lapped cars were on the low side so I had no choice but to go to the top.”
“I can’t even see a rut there, it just started bouncing and then just took off.”
“They have butchered the track up here and made it pretty hard for us, I don’t know what the hell they were doing”, Egel finished, referring to the track work prior to the Feature race.
The restart with 13 laps to run saw Goodyer lead the field off, from Hallett, Tate Frost and Chad Ely in the top four.
Goodyer was able to make the high line work in turn one and two but was consistently running down low in Turn 3 and 4 – a strategy that was evidently working with the lead stretching to over 1.5s after five laps.
Australian Champion Goodyer has been consistent all week and that consistency came to the fore, with the polesitter taking his third win from four events in the Chariots of Thunder Series and a deserving winner in the championship.
Grand Annual Classic winner, and the only other racer to win a feature race in the 2023 Chariots of thunder, Brock Hallet, finished a deserving second and Tasmanian Tate Frost on the podium in third.
Goodyer defended his decision not to take the Pole Challenge, saying after the race; “I wish I could have done it for you guys in the crowd but It was going to be a bit hard to come from the back on this track, I would have loved to do it but the first 15 or 20 laps were follow the leader”.
“[I’m] happy to get the win, happy to go three straight up here which gives us some good momentum heading into the southern season”.
“We just had a very balanced car, and I read the track pretty well, just stoked to take the win”.
The championship series runner up was South Australian Ryan Jones, with Luke Dillion rounding out the Championship podium after a consistent showing across the four nights of racing.
