Harri Jones and Jackson Walls were the Equity One Pro victors while Adrian Flack and Matt Belford took the SP Tools Pro-Am honours at Sandown.
Porche Centre Motorsport Melbourne’s Jones won Race 1 by 3.8s ahead of Dylan O’Keeffe, Hall and Fabian Coulthard. In Pro-Am, Flack won despite a tour of the sand trap at Turn 1. He finished ahead of Sam Shahin and Rodney Jane.
In the wet conditions, it was O’Keeffe who won the start led for the first five laps. After an early attempt to take the lead at Turn 1 that went slightly amiss, Jones made it work at the same spot on Lap 6.
As Jones pulled away, O’Keeffe had to fend off Hall and Coulthard to the flag. Just behind them was David Russell who recovered from an early off at Turn 10. He was followed by Walls and Nash Morris. Then came Dale and Glen Wood who were initially split by Zak Best until the former Super 2 regular was repositioned to 14th.
Some that were caught out in the conditions were Ryder Quinn at Turn 1 on Lap 2, Marcos Flack with a pirouette at Turn 11 and Caleb Sumich an off at Turn 8.
A rain shower and then sunshine just before the Enduro Cup left teams to decide on either wet or slick tyres. Most chose the former with the threat of more rain whilst nine gambled that the track would stay dry.
The front runners remained on Michelin wets as the race commenced and O’Keeffe led from Walls, Jones and Coulthard who had contact that spun Hall at Turn 2.
McElrea Racing’s Walls took the lead on Lap 3 and was able to build a gap as Jones strived to find a way past O’Keeffe. By the time Jones did grab second, Walls was nearly 4.0s up the road. The gap halved when Walls erred at Turn 2, but he was able to regather and edge away to an eventual 7.5s victory.
Jones was on his own in second place as O’Keeffe came under pressure from Russell who snared third on the last lap. Morris held off Coulthard for fifth while Hall was next in front of Lockie Bloxsom and Quinn who recovered from a Lap 1 spin.
Those that chose dry tyres all had to pit for wets and that included Flack which gave Belford the Pro-Am victory over Dean Cook and Matt Slavin.
The third and final race is at 12:00pm on Sunday.
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