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Kerrick Sports Sedan Series front-runners Tony Ricciardello, Darren Hossack and Steven Tamasi have walked away from a high-speed clash during a dramatic penultimate round of the season at Phillip Island.
The incident occurred at the start of the morning’s second heat of the weekend, triggering red flags and the subsequent cancellation of the race.
Contact between pole-sitter Hossack and Tamasi, who had ducked to the inside after making the best of the rolling start from the second row, shot the latter’s Holden Calibra into the path of Ricciardello’s Alfa.
All three were sent spinning across the outfield at Turn 1; each coming to rest without contacting the barriers.
Even so, steering and differential damage was respectively enough to put Race 1 winner Hossack and Tamasi out of the weekend.
Ricciardello’s team patched up the Alfa to take seventh in Race 3, securing the West Australian second overall for the weekend behind Holden Monaro driver Michael Robinson.
Robinson had trailed Thomas Randle, Steven Lacey and Dean Camm to the line in Race 3, but won the round courtesy of the three state level entrants being ineligible for national series points.
Ricciardello is meanwhile now on course to secure his eighth Sports Sedan title at the November 1-2 Sydney Motorsport Park season finale
“That race two incident was unfortunate on cold tyres and on the outside of the first corner, something obviously happened between Steven and Darren and we got collected up,” said Ricciardello after Race 3.
“We were pretty lucky to get away with the damage that we did, and it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get back out there for race three, but we got out there and now it is a matter of preparing for Sydney Motorsport Park.
“We will analyse it all and go over it with a fine-tooth comb, as Sydney is another one of those places where we don’t want to have any mechanical dramas.”
