The McElrea Racing driver led from the outset and continued his dominance of Round 7 of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
He was quick off the start and pushed out to a 1.9s lead at the end of the first lap and then consolidated from there until the safety car appeared on Lap 11, under which the race finished.
Garth Walden Racing’s Dylan O’Keeffe jumped to an immediate second and staved off TekworkX Motorsport’s David Russell through all the green racing laps as Earl Bamber Motorsport’s Dale Wood chased them.
There were five 2.0s penalties applied for kerb strikes and the safety car finish hurt fifth placed Jackson Walls. He was relegated to 10th behind Angelo Mouzouris, Ryder Quinn, championship leader Harri Jones, Glen Wood and Marcos Flack.
Fabian Coulthard’s 2.0s error dropped him from 10th to 13th behind Caleb Sumich and Lockie Bloxsom. Others that were pinged were last Sprint Challenge winner Clay Osborne, Marco Giltrap and Matt Slavin.
As Bailey also took out the Equity-One Professionals, the SP Tools Pro-Am class was another victory for Adrian Flack who passed several Pros early and ultimately finished 15th. Second in the class was Rodney Jane ahead of Dean Cook and Stephen Grove in his 200th start.
The safety car was caused by Harrison Goodman who hit the tyre bundle on the exit of Turn 10 at the beach chicane. Earlier Nash Morris was forced out with steering damage.
The qualifying session earlier, delayed 30mins due to track fence repairs, was interrupted with two red flags.
Marc Cini triggered the first when he spun into the tyre barrier at Turn 10. The second, under which the session terminated was when Marcus Flack gave the main straight chicane tyre belt a good rub.
The fastest two times (for the first two races) went to Hall. Second was O’Keeffe and Russell had to settle for third. He was on potential pole lap when the second stoppage happened.
Jones and Adrian Flack can seal their respective championships on Sunday and before the Adelaide finale in November.
There are two races on Sunday to complete Round 7 with the Endurance Cup race at 8:40am and the last sprint race at 12:55pm AEST.
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