Owen leads all the way in Bathurst opener

Steve Owen has recorded a dominant race victory to kick off Round 6 of the Dunlop Series at Bathurst.

The pole-sitter was briefly headed by team-mate Dale Wood on the first run to Hell Corner, but prevailed on the inside amid slight contact and never looked back for the duration of the race.

Owen had amassed a four second lead after just six laps, and was still four seconds clear of the chasing pack when a Safety Car was called on Lap 11, before safely maintaining his advantage in the single-lap dash to the flag.

Wood ran second until the chequered flag, seeing off an early challenge from Jack Perkins that had allowed Owen to skip away.

Wood had temporarily peeled several tenths off his MW Motorsport team-mate’s advantage during the middle portion of the race, but would have to settle for a handy points contribution to his series lead.

Perkins briefly passed Wood at The Chase on Lap 1, but went in too hot to be able to consolidate the move, and ended up running much of the race approximately half a second in arrears of the man with whom he drove the 2009 Bathurst 1000.

Taz Douglas was a late threat to Perkins upon the restart, forcing the Eggleston Motorsport driver to defend at Griffins Bend, but couldn’t go with car #54 across the top and crossed the line fourth.

Andrew Jones was fifth, from George Miedecke and Drew Russell, while series contender Ash Walsh salvaged eighth after a tardy start to the race saw him drop to 14th.

Casey Stoner was sixth out of the first corner but ninth by the end of the opening lap after running off at The Chase. While passed by Walsh on the final lap, that was nullified by an Andre Heimgartner error in front, and ninth was where the twice MotoGP world champion remained.

Aaren Russell completed the top ten, while enduro co-drivers Chris Pither and Paul Morris were 21st and 23rd respectively, the former incurring brake issues while running tenth and the latter sailing off at The Chase having outbraked himself.

Aaron Tebb and Sam Walter necessitated the Safety Car thanks to separate incidents, Tebb spinning on the run into Reid Park and making light rear-end contact with the wall, while Walter beached his Commodore at Murrays Corner.

With laps 11 and 12 run under yellow flags, the somewhat processional race was shortened one lap from its planned 14-lap duration due to scheduling restrictions.

Race 2 commences on Saturday at 14:55 AEDT.

See below for the full Race 1 result