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However, the first round of the open sportscar category at Phillip Island on the Shannons SpeedSeries third round program, was won by Cutts overall.
Arise Racing’s Cutts and Garth Walden Racing’s Paddon each had a first and a second over the two 45min races with mandatory pitstops. But the laurels went to Cutts for an additional point for qualifying fastest.
The grid for Race 2 was set off the second fastest time in the qualifying session. That saw Paddon and Volante Rosso’s Josh Hunt go side-by-side through Turns 1 and 2 before Paddon wrestled away the lead. Cutts was third in front of Bart Mawer, Chris Reindler, Ash Samadi, Garth Walden and Melinda Price.
Other than Paddon, most of the front runners opted to take their compulsory pitstops as soon as the window opened. Paddon held off a lap and was lucky to get in before the Safety Car was deployed. Andrew Eldridge spun at Turn 4 while Stephen Champion came to a halt to avoid contact and couldn’t restart initially.
Once the race resumed, Paddon led Cutts on corrected time, but Bill Medland led the race as he had not pitted at this stage. Paddon and Cutts also had to deal with lapped traffic. While storming past Arthur Abrahams and Sue Hughes to Turn 1, Abrahams had a massive lose, albeit without going off track.
Any chance Cutts was to catch Paddon went when Cutts had a moment at Turn 4 which dropped him from 2s behind to 5.4, after which it went out to 7s at the end of 22 laps.
Arise’s Bryce Moore, who took over from Reindler, finished third ahead Ethan Brown (Tim Macrow Racing) third for the round and fourth overall, Terry Knowles (in for Mawer). Then followed Peter Clare (in for Hunt), Samadi, Eldridge, Russell and Glenn Kenny who took over from Price.
