A terrific crowd filed into Redline Raceway to see it’s opening show of the season with a series round for the Grand Prix Midgets, plus the start of the Ballarat season for Street Stocks, Standard Saloons and Unlimited Sedans providing the entertainment. A close finish in the Grand Prix Midgets where Chris Fowler from Geelong defeated Alex Myers from Shepparton by just .015 of a second at the finish line as the two made differing passing decisions to get around Shawn Ward, produced a grandstand finish to their feature. Whilst in Street Stocks Jayden Blomeley of Ballarat beat Jason Degoldi by just .295 of a second to start their season. Scott Whittle put on a master class in Standard Saloons and Sean Lister was too good for the competition in the Unlimited Sedans.
In the Grand Prix Midgets state series round, Peter Robotham took victory in the first qualifier by a massive seven plus seconds as he scorched around with a fast lap of 14.973 seconds, the first transponder recorded one lap record for the class at Redline. Robotham was again victorious in the second heat race winning ahead of Terry Brown. Before Brown himself took victory in the third and final heat race. In the feature race Matt Kamolins was the early leader before Alex Myers moved out front on lap three. Chris Fowler became the third race leader on lap ten of twelve as he made a turn one outside pass to get around Myers and traffic to take the lead. Myers almost snatched victory form the jaws of defeat at the line with just that .015 margin between he and Fowler. With Kamolins in third, Jack Ward in fourth and Robotham back in fifth spot.
Six heat race qualifiers for the Street Stocks seen some terrific racing from local racers keen to pick up the win to start the season ahead of a handful of visitors. Shaun Henry from Ballarat won the first heat by snatching the win from Kye Richardson from Murray Bridge in South Australia who had led the previous nine laps only to be pipped at the line by .049 of a second. Jason Degoldi the Redline clubs number one Street Stock racer then took victory in the second heat race. Another club member Nathan Fawns won the third heat race by just .248 of a second after mechanical issues did not allow him to get a start in the first round of racing after he passed Leigh Gooding and Paul Domburg to win. Henry was again a winner in the fourth qualifier. Domburg them claimed a win in heat five with Jayden Blomeley finally winning in heat six ahead of Degoldi by just .224 of a second.
A twenty-lap feature was lead all the way by Jayden Blomeley in what is a new twenty lap record for the class. A time of 6:03.303 with Degoldi on his tail right throughout was a crowd-pleasing feature race as those two went at it lap after lap. Domburg finished in third behind Degoldi with Henry and Gooding rounding out the top five.
Scott Whittle as a late entry spiced up the Standard Saloon racing coming from the rear of the field in every qualifying race before starting the feature event last despite qualifying first. His night included three heat victories from three starts winning heat one, four and five. Ballarat racer Austin Chivers took victory in heat two, his brother also a local racer Lachie, took the win in heat four and another Ballarat competition Jacob Head won the last heat race by .256 of a second in the closest result for the class for the evening. In the final, Whittle beat Bailey Sinclair, Patrick Walsh, Joshua Cormack and Jacob Head with Sinclair and Walsh in a race long battle.
In the Unlimited Sedans both Sean Lister and Graeme Nugent were fast with Nugent clocking a time close to the Grand Prix Midgets early in the night. Without a big field of cars chased down and passed Tim Williams to win the first heat whilst Nugent led all the way in the second to win by just .179 of a second. A crazy finish in the third qualifier as Nugent and Lister were making their way to the finish line seen the two cars crash together as they exited turn four. Stuck together they went flying off into the infield with Nugent crossing the transponder line and Lister recording a finish albeit the Stewards decided he would finish last with Nugent in third and Williams was elevated to the victory. Nugent didn’t make it on track for the final and Lister went on to victory ahead of Williams and Gavin Ough.
Redline Raceway have made the hard decision to not run the scheduled event in the middle of the November. Instead, they will be back again on December the 16th with the state Sports Sedan series round event expecting around thirty plus entrants, Australian Motor Contest Association of Victoria will compete in their mostly 350ci crate engine powered cars and Street Stocks and Standard Saloons will entertain again as supports.
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Written by Speedcafe contributor DMT Sports Media – Dean Thompson
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