Dream Racing’s Jackson Rice was confident of a good showing at his Morgan Park debut and did just that by taking out Race 1 of the TA2 Muscle Cars by Hytek Steel Framing’s fourth round.

Rice took the lead from fellow Mustang racer and pole-sitter Josh Haynes just before the mid-point of the 12-lap race between Turns 5 and 6 to win by 1.0s. Third place went to Dylan Thomas [Mustang] who was 3.7s behind.

Haynes was fastest in Friday’s practice, headed qualifying and won the Top 8 Shootout. He led the race until Rice passed him on Lap 5. Thomas held third throughout, ahead of Brad Gartner in his return after a serious crash at Queensland Raceway just a couple of weeks ago. His Mustang fully rebuilt in a short period of time.

“Josh was really fast off the bat. We set our tyres up low to come on late and have good mid-race pace and we did exactly that,” Rice said.

“The car was good, and we took an opportunity [to pass] when one presented. We tried to conserve towards the end, we were obviously leading and there was a bit of clean air to try to look after the rubber.”

Behind fifth placed Graham Cheney (Camaro) in the early laps was Nick Bates (Mustang) who fell down the order after a collision with Zach Loscialpo (Camaro) at Turn 10. Mark Crutcher was the beneficiary as he finished seventh ahead of Loscialpo.

They were followed home by a flock of Mustang drivers, namely Russell Wright, Matt MacKelden, Greg Keam, Bates and Rob Leonard with Paul Hadley [Camaro] rounding out the 14-car field. Keam had been battling with Crutcher until a spin dropped him two spots.

The TA2 Muscle Cars will have three more races on Sunday as part of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series at the Warwick circuit.