Mazdas lead SuperUtes practice at Winton

Ryal Harris finished a second ahead of Aaron Cameron as the Peters Motorsport Mazdas set the pace in practice for Round 2 of the ECB SuperUtes Series at Winton.

Both 20-minute sessions were affected by wet weather though the latter ran mostly without rain, meaning that lap times gradually dropped on the drying track.

Harris was the leader for much of Practice 2 in the #58 EFS BT-50 and ended the hit-out with a best time of 1:46.5745s to top both practice sessions.

He and team-mate Cameron were generally first and second despite spending a lot of time in close proximity on the rural Victorian circuit and the 18-year-old ended up slightly quicker than third-placed Craig Dontas.

Dontas held top spot on two occasions, either side of a spin at Turn 3 in the Sieders Racing Team Mitsubishi Triton as spots of rain fell at Winton.

The former V8 Utes racer was first of the string of five Sieders-prepared cars with Ben Walsh fourth-fastest in his Western Sydney Motorsport Toyota Hilux having also been off-road, late in the session.

Series leader Craig Woods (WSM Hilux) finished fifth, ahead of Toby Price (SRT Triton) and Matt MacKelden (SRT Hilux).

Tomas Gasperak (Team 18 Holden Colorado) was eighth and Steve Wilson ninth in the Isuzu D-Max’s first day of official running.

Tom Alexander brought out an early red flag in the afternoon session when his Ross Stone Racing Holden Colorado came to a stop on-track.

The team reportedly traced the issue back to the car not getting power to the ECU.

The New Zealander finished 10th on combined times ahead of Christopher Formosa in the Ranger Racing Ford Ranger, which was carried back to the paddock on a flatbed after Practice 2.

Saturday sees Armor All Qualifying for 20 minutes at 1205 local time/AEST and Race 1 later in the afternoon.

Results: Combined Practice