Garry Holt and Nathan Morcom backed up their Saturday success in the Australian Manufacturers Championship taking another commanding victory at Wakefield Park.
After enduring an engine failure yesterday, Dylan Thomas again looked to challenge the dominant Eastern Creek Karts Mitsubishi before mechanical issues again intervened and forced them out of the race.
Holt burst into the lead early and was never headed, though Thomas challenged early despite starting from the back of the grid.
A puncture sidelined the charge for Luke Searle’s new BMW M135 early on, leaving Beric Lynton to pick up the pieces and push the leading Mitsubishi to the line.
Despite running much of yesterday’s race without a turbo, and encountering further issues on the grid prior to today’s race start, Lynton persevered throughout the 200km race to score a well deserved second, less than 15s behind the winning Mitsubishi.
Searle finished third and took out the Class B battle, Mike and Scott Gore winning Class C in their BMW and Jake Williams securing back-to-back class D wins in his Honda Integra.
The AMChamps will hold the season finale at Sandown next month along with the final round of the 2013 Shannons Nationals.
John Corbett (SR8) won a thrilling final round of the 2014 Radical Australia Cup series following a dramatic 50-minute enduro that – for a while – looked like becoming the race that no-one wanted to win.
There was drama early as leaders Neale Muston and Tim Berryman clashed at turn one, firing Muston’s Excalibur Racing entry out into sand and to the back of the field.
Berryman assumed the lead but was soon penalised for the contact with Muston at turn one, handing the lead to Peter White.
White led the race until lap 8 when he ran off the road at turn two, handing the lead to Corbett who became the third leader in thirteen laps. Muston’s charge through the field – he climbed to second – ended on lap 15 when his car succumbed to the damage caused in the opening lap crash.
Berryman climbed to second by lap 28 and set about reducing the gap to the leader, getting to within six seconds at the flag.
Richard Kimber finished third and Kim Burke finished first of the SR3s – though Simon Haggarty won the round overall in the four-cylinder class.
Neale Muston ended the year as SR8 champion whilst Liam Talbot’s seventh outright today was enough to secure him the SR3 class championship.
The Australian Swift Racing Series will go to the final round with Luke Fraser and Ben Grice tied on points ahead of the three-race finale at Sandown.
Fraser won the Wakefield Park round ahead of Allan Jarvis and Callan Sayers but a salvage effort from Grice, after a lack of practice early in the weekend thanks to a broken gearbox in practice, saw him come away on equal points.
Fraser and Grice are locked on 630 points each with Jarvis, the reigning double champion, less than a full race win’s points behind.
As always the Swift Series racing at Wakefield was extremely competitive with Fraser and Jarvis splitting the wins this weekend.
The three NSW State Championship categories provided plenty of action, with the Production Touring Cars category in particular putting on a show.
Three Holden drivers – Robert Coulthard, Brett Heeley and Tony Virag sharing the wins in their Holden / HSV Commodores.
Trent Grubel looked like sweeping all three NSW Formula Ford races before being taken out of the lead final race whilst dicing with Jacob Parsons – who would go on to take the win.
Kevin Stoopman swept all three HQ Holden races in a commanding performance.
The next round of the Shannons Australian Motor Racing Nationals is scheduled for Sandown from November 22-24.
