It was business as usual for Monochrome GT4 front-runner Shane Smollen while Coleby Cowhan scored something of an upset when he led the Mobil 1 Production Car field home in the combined categories’ Round 3 opener at Queensland Raceway.
Smollen enlisted Lachlan Mineef as co-driver for the weekend, and the pair ran out a comprehensive outright and GT4 win to the tune of 32.4s. The duo aboard a Porsche Cayman 718 led from the start and only surrendered the lead temporarily at the compulsory pit stop.
Second place went to Steve Jukes in the GT4 BMW F82 M4, who was being chased down by Nash Morris, in Mark Griffith’s Mercedes AMG GT, until they clashed just a couple of minutes before the end of the one-hour race.
The incident cost Morris and Griffith one place as Tony Quinn (Porsche) was able to get ahead for third place. Half a second behind the Mercedes was Karl Begg in his McLaren 570S. The other McLaren in the field, shared by Chris Pappas and Cameron McLeod, was a retiree when suffered contact with a lapped car.
Sixth outright and the winner in Production Cars was Cowham in the Class A2 Ford Mustang after the quick Class X BMWs of the Sherrin brothers, Grant and Iain, were late retirements. The former was fourth outright until he had a fuel pump failure, and the latter retired with a badly delaminated tyre.
Second behind Cowham was Beric Lynton (BMW F80 M3), with Cameron Crick (A1 Mitsubishi EVO X) third. Then came Robert Gooley (M3) and Andrew Miedecke (Mustang). Just out of the outright top 10 was Ben Gersekowski (Class B2 BMW M3), ahead of Tyler Mecklem (EVO X), and Tim Leahey (Class X M3).
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Class B1 went to Rob Rubis (BMW 135i) in 16th position, one place ahead of Jake Camilleri (Mazda 3 MPS), who won Class C. John Connolly (Nissan Pulsar) and Shane Fowler (Mazda 3 SP23) were the respective winners of Classes D and E.
The second race of the round, a two-hour enduro, will start at 5:55 pm on Saturday before another one-hour race on Sunday morning at 10:05 am.
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