Issue 6 Rolling Thunder E Mag

ROLLING THUNDER Racing E News/Magazine

www.racermagazineaustralia.com.au

.

Brooke Tatnell GASC winner for the

third time

BRAZIERAUSSIE CHAMP FOR THE SIXTH TIME

ROLLING THUNDER Racing E News/Magazine 2


CONTENTS — Issue 6 Quick News. Grand Annual Classic. Blast from the past. Australian Production

Sedan Title. West Coast Classic. NSSS @ Avalon. RTS Chassis Stampede

Series F500 wrap. Reidy Memorial 4 AMCA. NOS Title. VSC Sprint Title. VMPA @ Avalon. Drouin—The family

Speedway. SRA—Hamilton. All Stars Shine. SDAV Rods. Ricochet Ray wins again

after 20 years! Classic and Oz Sprint Ti-

tle Stats.

PHOTO’SCourtesy of:

Brett Swanson [email protected]

CLT Photography. (Cassie Tuckett)[email protected]

Darren Winter - Frosty Photographics

Corey Gibson Photography.

MEDIA RELEASES: Pirate Media—Brett Swanson Dean Thompson (DMT Media).

Published by: Racer Publishing Pty Ltd.ABN 69 122 820 348P O Box 1047, Bacchus Marsh.Victoria. Australia. 3340.

Editors: Brett Swanson, Ray Solomon.Contributors: Dean Thompson (DTM Media)

Contributors; Please email contributions to [email protected] or [email protected]

COPYRIGHT: Material contained in Rolling Thunder Racing E news is protected under the Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968. No part of this publication may in any form or by any means be reproduced without the prior written permission of the Publisher. The publisher has taken all reasonable precautions to ensure the complete accuracy of material contained in this publication, however, it is a condition of receiving this magazine that the Publisher does not assume any responsibility for any loss or damage which may result from the content of material published in this magazine. Although Racer Publishing Pty Ltd uses its best endeavours to ensure the accuracy of everything it publishes, the Fair Trading Act 1985 requires Racer Publishing Pty Ltd to disclaim any belief in the truth or falsity of information whish is supplied to it and which is published in other than editorial comment. Unsolicited editorial contributions are welcome, how ever, no responsibility can be accepted for their safety or return. The options of contributors are not necessarily those of the Publisher.

www.rallydrive.com.au



Apology: We know it’s been quite a while between issues but , like most of you, we’ve all been very busy with Christ-mas, the holidays and all the racing that has been happening over the peak time of the season.With that said, we are now back with the next issue and while some of the stories are a little old, we still they were relevant. And besides, the magazine is to-tally free so don’t be too hard on everyone here at RTRE-Mag.Now, on with the news.

O'Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions, Inc. agrees to terms to acquire IRS Late Model Se-ries

The All Star Circuit of Champions, Inc has purchased the Independent Racing Series (IRS) Late Model Se-ries and has began to put together the most afford-able premiere Late Model series in the country, the O'Reilly All Star Late Model Series. The O'Reilly Late Model Series is the newest series owned and operated under the banner of the "O'Reilly All Stars" which in-cludes the O'Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions and the O'Reilly Midwest All Star Series.

The O'Reilly All Star Late Model Series will have approx. a 30 date schedule that will be focused in the Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, Kentucky and Illinois states. Eighty percent

of the schedule will be within eight hours from Columbus, Ohio featur-ing a base show of $5000.00 to win and $400.00 to start with many $7000.00 and $10,000.00 shows included in the 2009 schedule.

The improvements will include a large point fund for the top 10 driv-ers and owners, appearance fees for the five chosen "All Stars," and a race format that will entertain and excite the fans. The multi-state tour will feature some of the best drivers in the country going fender to fender at some of the best Late Model tracks in the coun-try.

This is not the first time that there has been a com-panion Late Model series to the All Star Circuit of Champions. From 1980 thru 1993 Late Models raced their own schedule as well as partnered with the Sprint Cars in several events. Hall of Famer Charlie Swartz is at the top of the all-time wins list with 36 wins followed by Donnie Moran (26), and the final points champion Billy Moyer (15).

Victorian Formula 500 safety initiative.

While the 600cc four stroke revolution is slowly taking over F500 racing, one unforseen issue has arisen when the carburettors get damaged during a racing incident resulting in a fire.

Fortunately no one has been injured in Victoria as a result of a couple of these incidents but it has high-lighted a particular problem and the Victorian F500 association have to their credit, been quick to act to try and remedy the situation and prevent any future occurrences.

In the regulations and entry form for the upcoming Victorian F500 Stampede Series, the association has mandated the use of protection “nerf bars” for Car-

QUICK NEWS



burettors on 600cc Left Hand Engined cars.

It states. “The Victorian association has as a result of a recent serious fire, decided to mandate the use of a protection bar around the carburettors of any 600cc car with the engine mounted on the left hand side.”

The problem seems to stem mainly from two factors: Firstly the 600cc left handed engines have the carbys’ mounted high and vulnerable to damage on the left hand side and secondly, the drivers have to virtually climb in and out over the motor on the left hand side.

The suggested arrangement is a miniature nerf bar with two mounts behind the carburettors and one at the front. The nerf bar is removable so that work can be performed on the motor and carburettors when needed.

The Victorian association cannot make this a National rule, but they can introduce it as a sub regulation for the Stampede Series and are pushing to have it adopted by the Oval Express series and Nationally.

Darren Mollenoyux’s Swift race parts has already tooled up to make a production run of clamps to help racers with this issue.

The association should be applauded for their pro-active action and kudos should also go to competitor Kevin Freeman who donated some fire extinguishers to be attached to the association’s quad bike after one of these incidents.

Australian Speedway lost a great man and a fierce competitor when Sydney’s Scott Darley was tragically killed after crashing his Sprint-car during the C-Main of the George Tatnell

Tribute event at Parramatta City Raceway on October 18th.

28 year old Darley was a very dedicated, successful and highly respected competitor and was considered one of the up and coming stars of the sport.

The former Australian Litrecar Champion will be greatly missed by a large number of people both from within the Speedway community and his friends from other areas.

Rolling Thunder e-mag extends its condolences to Scott Darleys’ family and friends.

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Pirate media is the media outlet of choice for Troy Little Racing, Hen-nessey Mo-torsport, AMCA Nationals Victoria, Rolling Thunder Raceway.

For further enquiries contact Pirate Media on 0410 198 138 or [email protected]



Above: Frosty Pics captured this great panoramic shot of the track and the packed infield on night 1 of the 2009 Grand Annual Sprint-car Classic.

Grand annual Sprintcar Classic a financial bonanza(?) Based on quotes from David Mills, General Man-ager Premier Speedway, the 2009 GASC should be a financial bonanza given that 7500 people attended the meeting on the first night with 11500 people on the final night.

The overall event had a great atmos-phere due in part to the decision of 3 Victorian car owners in deciding to im-port American drivers to compliment

their race teams, adding to the interna-tional flavour of the event.

This years classic really belonged to just one man—Brooke Tatnell. Tatnell was virtually unstoppable in the Krikke Motorsport entry and was only twice beaten in race situations, once by Cam-eron Gessner in a heat on Saturday and then again by Ryan Farrell on Sun-day, also in a heat.

The quality of the field was reflected in the time trials and then the heat rac-ing.

Four drivers including fast man Ash Cook broke Danny Lasoski’s one lap record in qualifying and all but three drivers were within less than one and a

half seconds of Cooks “Allan Pollard Memrorial” quick time.

Then in the heats no driver was able to win any more than one heat per night. Tatnell went closest with a pair of wins and a pair of seconds to earn him pole for the feature.

For the second straight year the main event ran 40 laps non-stop.

Very few teams packed up and “sooked” off after a poor performance on night one. Even those who tore up cars, such as Brett Milburn (who also tore up the fence), Wayne Johnson, Jason Tranter and Mitchell Dumesny all repaired chassis damage and returned to race on night two knowing full well they were really up against it.

Once again Rob Rankin’s supreme welding skills were called upon to do a

quick fix on the fence after Milburn tried to tear it down.

BENDIGOGrant Phillips

Franchise Owner261 High Street Kangaroo Flat Victoria Australia 3555Tel: +613 5447 0009 Fax: +613 5447 2229Email: [email protected] Award Winning store Top Re-gional 03, 04, 06, 07. Top Store 2005.

FROSTY PICS



Pictorial highlights of the GASC:Check out the graphics on the Mathew Reed Westside Honda #92 highlighting the contribution by the great Danny Smith to the Australian Sprintcar scene over the past 26 years.. Well done Matty!. Pic by Brett Swanson

Former Victorian 125cc GP Motorcycle and Sprintcar racer Colin Bulmer jumped

back into the winged warriors in a big way putting together a new car and team and then getting silky smooth Shane Stewart out from the USA to steer it over the long weekend (right).

Stewart rewarded Bulmer’s faith aboard the USA2 Bayaire Industries Eagle by claiming second on the last lap. In the feature event Stewart clipped the wall coming out of turn 2 whilst checking his gauges as a result of the oil smoke

coming off the headers. The impact broke

the Jacobs ladder on the car. Stewart still moved forward to eventually finish in 2nd

place. Pic by Brett Swanson.

Fellow Victorian Rod Mathews decided to import WoO star, Terry McCarl, to take up the driving posi-tion in the PEX Ex-haust #9 machine. This oil leak, while looking spectacular was not really an issue for McCarl or the team. The Altoona, Iowa veteran brought the machine home in a strong 5th place in the final in only his third appearance at the fast little bullring. Pic by Frosty Pics.



Randy Hannagan (below) in the Harry Droste USA36 normally driven by Darren Russell put on the charge of the race finishing strongly in 4th place after storming through the field from the 17th starting position. With a mid race yellow Hannagan may have been able to finish even higher up the list. Pic by Brett Swanson

Also from the USA was Wayne Johnson (right) driving the #V39 of Brett Smith. Af-ter crashing on the first night the chassis had to undergo some fixing prior to the fi-nal nights racing.

Wayne was certainly up with fast guys on the final night but was reportedly still suf-fering some discomfort from his earlier crash. This wasn’t helped when he slammed into a stricken Eddie Lumbar who’d hit the wall after a Max Dumesny slide job had resulted in contact. Johnson

finished mid field in the B Main. Pic by Brett Swanson.

Danny Smith (below) returned down under with his own equip-ment ably supported Phil John-son, Carl Ludeman, John Sidney and a number of sponsors including Ian Grant. Things started brilliantly after scoring a win in the Adelaide round of World Series on boxing day but from there they weren’t so good. At what was probably his last Classic, Smith was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time on more than one occasion, sadly keeping him from having a real impact. Pic by Brett Swanson



Chris Campbell running an ASCS 360 engine was very competitive throughout the event given his obvious engine ca-pacity disadvantage. His aerial display in the back straight will also be remem-bered by the fans and Chris…..How high did he go!. Incredibly the car stood up to the impact extremely well as did Chris.

Pic by Brett Swanson

The presentation of most of the cars was superb, none more so than the T55 of Jamie Bricknell (winner of the best presented car & crew—above) and the N94 of Darryl Campbell (right). Well done guys . Pics by Brett Swanson

Nick Lacey (above right) is getting faster and faster. The mere fact he made the final with over 60 cars competing at the event, suggests he is one to watch in the future and will be as good as both his Australian Championship winning father, Brett, and Grandfather, Ray “Nippa” Lacey. Pic Brett Swanson.



Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic Statistics

Pos. Driver State Wins 2nd's 3rd's1 Garry Rush NSW 7 7 22 Danny Smith USA 6 3 23 Max Dumesny Vic 3 5 54 Brooke Tatnell NSW 3 1 25 Kerry Madsen NSW 3 1 16 Donny Schatz USA 2 17 Jac Haudenschild USA 28 Skip Jackson NSW 1 1 29 Garry Brazier NSW 1 1 110 Bill Wigzell SA 1 111 Jimmy Sills USA 1 112 Jack Hewitt USA 1 113 Danny Lasoski USA 1 114 Zeke Agars SA 115 Sid Hopping NSW 116 Trevor Green SA 117 Joey Saldana USA 118 Steve Brazier NSW 2 319 Greame McCubbinVic 2 120 Shane Stewart USA 2 121 Bill Barrows SA 1 122 Gerry Clarke Tas 123 Kevin Yoeman Vic 124 Bob Aylesbury SA 125 Les Harrower Vic 126 John Walsh NSW 127 Mike Ward USA 128 Greg Hodnett USA 129 Chad Kemanah USA 130 Jason Johnson USA 131 Phil March SA 232 Alan Jones SA 133 Dave Pollock NSW 134 Noel Bradford WA 135 Brett Lacey Vic 136 Sid Moore NSW 137 Ian Lewis Vic 138 George Tatnell NSW 1

BENDIGOGrant Phillips

Franchise Owner261 High Street Kangaroo Flat Victoria Australia 3555Tel: +613 5447 0009 Fax: +613 5447 2229Email: [email protected] Award Winning store Top Regional 03, 04, 06, 07. Top Store 2005.



Darryl CampbellGreat paint job!.

DRIVERS FROM PASTDo you know who these drivers are???



Australian Sprintcar Championship.

Finishing positions

A-Main 1. A1 Garry Brazier2. S4 Trevor Green3. W95 Ryan Farrell4. W2 Brooke Tatnell5. N18 Ian Loudoun6. Q7 Robbie Farr7. V45 Steven Lines8. V5 Max Dumesny9. W8 David Priolo10. W51 David Murcott11. W45 Daryl Clayden12. W99 Jamie Maiolo13. W87 Carl Dowling14. NT11 Warrenne Ekins15. V37 Grant Anderson16. S24 Ricky Maiolo17. W17 Luch Monte18. V35 Jamie Veal19. NT5 Danny Reidy20. Q25 Andrew Scheuerle21. N10 Adrian Maher22. W34 Kris Coyle23. W21 Mark Wells24. W44 Ben Ellement

B-Main 1. Q25 Andrew Scheuerle2. W87 Carl Dowling3. W21 Mark Wells4. V35 Jamie Veal5. S24 Ricky Maiolo6. W18 Scott Reilly7. W82 Steven Ford

8. W59 Kane Manuel9. W5 David Hall10. W57 Shaun Bradford11. Q29 James McFadden12. Q16 Bryan Mann13. S91 Ashley Cook14. NT61 Alan Barlee15. W68 Jodi Waldron16. W11 Jason Kendrick17. W35 Wayne Russell18. W65 Shannon Peet

C Main1. W65 Shannon Peet2. W35 Wayne Russell3. W97 Mark Hales4. W66 Robert Watson Jrn5. NT14 Matt Brown6. N77 Mitchell Dumesny7. W25 Scott Milling8. W55 Darren Mewett9. W98 Adyme Harvey10. W32 Garry Miller11. W83 Troy Lawson12. W15 Greg Fisher13. W53 Matt Muir14. N36 Eddie Lumbar15. W88 Grant Bevan16. W71 Jamie Moon

360 Sprintcar drivers from South Australia have presented a “bolt on engine weight” option to the Sprintcar Control Council of Australia (SCCA) for their analysis which may pave the way for the current SCCA steel headed 360 engines to compete with the American

Sprint Car Series (ASCS) engines that have proved so successful in Victoria over the past few years.

This bolt on weight option was pre-sented to 360 drivers in Victoria at the recent All Stars event held at Simpson Speedway on 17th January 2009.

Phil Lock was the winner of the event with an SCCA 360 engine.

No doubt there will be plenty of discus-sion regarding 360 Sprintcar engines specifications over the coming months.

AMB Timing System for Hire.

AMB timing system is available for hire to speedways throughout Aus-tralia. Up to 140 transponders and 3 decoders are available. For further information, contact Chris Olsson on 0410 308 398 or Ray Solomon on 0407 801 513.



41 Cameron Gessnor Qld 242 George Polley NSW 143 Tony Ward NSW 144 Peter Dickerson NSW 145 Wayne Fisher SA 146 Ron Clark Vic 147 Ron Smith Vic 148 David Conlon Vic 149 Tim Moncrieff Tas 150 Ian Samms NSW 151 Nippa Lacey Vic 152 John Walsh NSW 153 Ian Lewis Vic 154 Rod Bowen NSW 155 Nathan McDonald.Qld 156 Ian Loudon NSW 1

Individual Winners from each statePos. Pos. Wins1 NSW 122 Vic 43 SA 34 WA 25 Qld 1

Individual Podiums from each statePos. Pos.1 NSW 232 Vic 103 SA 84 WA 65 Qld 56 Tas 1

USA 1

Statistics courtesy of Kevin Reeves

Australian Sprintcar Championships StatisticsPos. Driver State Wins 2nd's 3rd's1 Garry Rush NSW 10 3 52 Garry Brazier NSW 6 33 Dick Britton NSW 5 1 14 Max Dumesny Vic 3 6 45 Brooke Tatnell NSW 3 2 36 Steve Brazier NSW 2 17 Jim Winterbottom NSW 28 Ron Krikke WA 29 Graeme McCubbinVic 1 2 310 George Tatnell NSW 1 2 311 Robbie Farr NSW 1 2 212 Kerry Madsen NSW 1 213 Brett Lacey Vic 1 1 114 Bill Willis Vic 1 115 Bill Warner NSW 1 116 Noel Bradford WA 1 117 Bill Wigzell SA 1 118 Bob Tunks NSW 1 119 John Moyle SA 120 Todd Wanless Qld 121 Phil March SA 122 Skip Jackson NSW 123 Les Harrower Vic 1 224 Ray Brett NSW 1 125 Ryan Farrell WA 1 126 Ray Forrest NSW 127 Ray Skipper NSW 128 Dave Lander NSW 129 Joe Skruise NSW 130 Phil Hereen SA 131 Alan Jones SA 132 Jimmy Sills USA 133 Alf Barbagallo WA 134 Bill Barrows SA 135 Bob Kelly Qld 136 Lee Foster WA 137 David Anderson NSW 138 Paul Lindberg Qld 139 Trevor Green SA 140 Mark Wells WA 2

Pos. Driver State Wins 2nd's 3rd's



LACK WINS HARD FOUGHT AUSTRALIAN TITLE

Story & Photos by Peter Whitten

Twenty-two year old Wangaratta me-chanic, Chris Lack, has survived some of the toughest conditions imaginable to take out the Australian Champion-ship for Production Sedans at the Wangaratta speedway on Saturday night.

In weather conditions which can only be described as brutal, Lack survived the 35 lap final to win the title, in a race which claimed three quarters of the field.

The Holden Commodore driver fought a battle for most of the final with Port-land’s Adam Holt (Ford Cortina), but Holt spun on the second last lap, ena-bling Lack to take victory ahead of Broken Hill’s Clint Jones, and Danny Harrison from Leeton.

As the state of Victoria baked in record temperatures, Wangaratta was no dif-ferent. The two-day event put drivers and their machines under extreme stress, with 41 degree heat on Friday, followed by 46 degrees on Saturday

afternoon. When the Production Se-dans final started at 9.45pm, the tem-perature was still 39 degrees.

After four heats, Holt and his Falcon-powered Cortina went into the final the favourite, with Western Australian Ron Belfield (Holden Torana) and Stephen Laidlaw (Commodore) push-ing him hard.

But from the start of the 35 lap final it was clear that the race was going to be a battle of survival. There were stoppages galore as cars spun off the track, hit the concrete wall and retired with mechanical problems. By the time 15 laps had been completed, only nine of the original 20 finalists were left, with locals Shane Box and Trevor Mills already out of the running.

The race looked like being a battle be-tween the experienced Belfield and the young charger, Holt. However the pair came together on lap 21, with the West Australian being sent to the rear of the field for his part in the incident.

In the meantime, Lack had been slow-ing chipping away at the leaders, and, now up to second place, he saw his chance of a home town victory. When two-time Australian Champion, Stephen Laidlaw, hit the wall and re-tired on lap 27, and Belfield was dis-qualified two laps later, the fight for

victory was left to Holt and Lack.

Holt was expected to hold on, but Lack wasn’t backing down and amaz-ingly worked his way to the lead, much to the delight of the parochial Wangaratta crowd. Try as he might, Holt couldn’t retake the lead, and when he spun with just a lap and a half remaining, his challenge was over.

A jubilant Lack took the chequered flag and did a lap of honour, with his fellow Wangaratta drivers the first to congratulate him. Clinton Jones and Danny Harrison survived the drama to finish second and third, while Leeton’s Rodney “Angry” Anderson was fourth

after an incident packed race. Holt was fifth – the last of the finishers in a race that claimed some of the coun-try’s best Production Sedan drivers.

Despite the scorching weather condi-tions, the Wangaratta Motor Sports Club were praised for their running of the national championship. Track con-ditions were ideal, and although crowd numbers were lower than expected due to the extreme heat, those in at-tendance were treated to some bril-liant racing.

In the support categories, the winners were: Luke Dinsdale (Vic Sports Se-dans), Jake Mills (VSC Juniors), Gary

An exhausted Chris Lack celebrates his Australian Title win, after a 35 lap final that lasted 90 minutes.



Evans (Standard Saloons), and Kay Howie (Ladies).

After the success of their biggest meeting of the season, racing returns to the WINSEC Securities Wangaratta City Raceway on February 21. For fur-ther information go to the club’s web-site at www.wangcityspeedway.org.au

Final Results; PRODUCTION SEDANS – AUSTRALIAN TITLE1. Chris Lack (Wangaratta), Holden Commodore2. Clint Jones (Broken Hill), Holden Commodore3. Danny Harrison (Leeton), Holden Commodore4. Rodney Anderson (Leeton), Ford FalconAdam Holt (Portland), Ford Cortina

AboveRon Watts tried hard in his col-ourful Commodore, but failed to make the 20-car final of the Pro-duction Sedans.

LeftWangaratta’s Chris Lack leads the field on his way to victory in the Australian Championship for Pro-duction Sedans on Saturday night.



Hickman Stars - what a way to end 2008.Fire Service Plus Sprintcar All Star’s are all still cele-brating the awesome win by current Series Champion Darren Hickman at Avalon Raceway on Boxing night. Hickman’s #40 J&J put on an awesome race on the traditional Boxing Night A Main event with a field of

30 plus Sprintcar’s. “We had a couple of our 360 com-petitors decide to have a run and support the S.R.A at Avalon just to get some laps and have some fun,

never even consid-ering the chance of winning the main event” says series Promoter Mandy Searle. “Darren told me he thought he would have a run at Avalon before he had some time off to go fishing – he mentioned that his original ambition was to just qualify in the A, that would have been enough to satisfy his night. To walk away with a feature win was just amazing!”“The jovial Bendigo competitor is such

a gracious guy everyone from the All Star’s are just so pleased for him. At Round 3 at Mildura’s Timmis Speedway #V3 Phil Lock managed to swoop past Hickman to take the feature win. At the Presenta-tion straight after the event anyone would have thought Darren won the race himself. He was so happy for Phil, shaking everyone’s hands and beam-ing from ear to ear, telling everyone Locky won, Locky won - how awesome for him !” His sports-manship in a real credit” laughs Mandy. “What a high for 360’s to finish the year and this is the way we want to start the New Year- on the same high”

Hickman (above left) slides underneath Grant Anderson to take the lead and then (above right) celebrates atop the rollcage of his Deep Creek Marina Hotel V40.

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Griffey (Front) Hill (Behind) side by side at Avalon



2 IN A ROW FOR LOCKFire Service Plus All Stars put on the fireworks at Simpson Raceway on January 17. After 2 attempts to get the start underway the feature developed into a great battle between the top 5 cars. It was taken out by local town hero #V4 Phil Lock. This was a deserv-ing win as Lock lead the last half of the race but was being challenged by #V11 Brad Foster in the final laps. Phil was congratulated by a huge crowd at the Presentation all obviously proud of their local boy. Foster had his best result for the season finally giving some encouragement and confidence to the team for all their hard work and effort.

A strong car count of 23 cars were in force to support the Series and the night was certainly action packed with current 1st & 2nd placed in the Series both having eventful nights. #V40 Dar-ren Hickman sustained major car dam-age after taking out his first Heat win. His Wife Sandi offered to step out of her #V30 mount to let hubbie take over for the night. “Darren was not too sure about this and told me he would have preferred to let Sandi have the experience and it wasn’t fair to let her sit out for the night” says Mandy Searle, “but I guess they can sort that out over breaky this morning!” Tony Bartlett’s # SA75 Cool Chassis of Colin Brooks also had dramas with Colin having to go to rear after a 2nd push start at the start of the feature after lining up in position 3. #V53 Tony Moule also sustained major damage hitting the wall hard on the main straight at the 2nd attempt to start the feature. Tony was fine but his car not so lucky. Terang’s V61 Ricky Barrand was also taken out in this stoppage. “If I can only get this mon-key off my back and get to finish a race this season I will be rapt” – tells Ricky, after a season so far he would prefer to forget.ACT’s #8 Shaun Forrell took at fairly hard dump in the B Main ending his nights racing abruptly. After what had been a good start to the night ACT’s # 26 Ben Reid lined up in position 10 in the A only to be another car involved

in the mishaps at the start of the A. “Ben hasn’t had much seat time lately and I am sure the team would have been happy with his night overall” Mandy tells us.Final placing as follows –1st - V4 Phil Lock, 2nd - V11Brad Fos-ter, 3rd - V7 Paul Solomon, 4th - V83 Chris Solomon, 5th

- SA83 Shannon Barry, 6th -V24 Chris Campbell, 7th

- V30 Darren Hick-man, 8th – S11 Karl Ender, 9th - S75 Colin Brooks, 10th -Colin Barker.Heat wins were taken out by SA11 Karl Enderl, V40 Darren Hickman, SA83 Shannon Barry, V25 David Cook, SA75 Colin Brooks, and V53 Tony Moule.Contingency Prizes winnersIdigit $50 Lucky Draw – Gavin Tay-lor, Red Ed Sheds Lucky 7’s – Darren Hickman, Hoosier A Main – Phil Lock, 1-11 Last Man

Standing – Karl Enderl, Fire Service Plus Hot Arse – Mark ChargeSmileys Hard Charger – Darren Hick-man.

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FINALLY DREW WINS THE CLASSIC AT

AVALON RACEWAY

Local hero and former national cham-pion Justin Drew finally added the Modified Production West Coast Classic to his impressive list of achievements when he defeated a quality field at Avalon Raceway on Saturday night, January 10. Defending event winner Mark Carlin raced into second while early race leader Darren Cockerill filled the final podium position.Cockerill maneuvered his Monaro to the early lead and ran the low side of the circuit ensuring any challenges would have to come around the out-side. Drew quickly found himself in second while Mick Hetherington also made a great start to be in the top 3. Four laps in and the red lights halted proceedings when Graham Cox exited in spectacular fashion barrel rolling his Chrysler in turn 1. Fortunately Cox managed to walk away from the scene unharmed. Controversy then followed when Cox removed the ignition key from the car of the driver he believed responsible for helping him over and a short delay followed as a replacement ignition switch was borrowed from an-other competitor!

Cockerill led away however Drew made his outside move for the lead work and popular local never looked back taking a commanding win. Carlin

sliced his way into the runner up spot while Cockerill managed to fend off Victorian champion Andrew Blackwell for third. Anthony Wilson rounded out the top 5.

“It was a great night for Justin as he has wanted to win this event for so long. This was the thirty first running of the West Coast Classic and Justin was quick to say that this win rates alongside his national title win a few years ago,” explained Avalon Raceway spokesman Jeff Drew.

Hetherington failed to finish the event due to steering failure mid race. Ear-lier, Hetherington won two heat races before a power steering belt failed in his third heat to deny him a front row

start in the final. Another driver who impressed was Mount Gambier’s Chris Hayden who failed to start the final due to low oil pressure in his Falcon. A heat win and a pair of second place results also had him well placed for the final.

James McDonald shot to the lead of the Junior Sedan feature following a restart with four laps remaining to take the win. Jesse Nicholas enjoyed a great run in his Daihatsu Charade until he left the bottom of the track wide open at the restart allowing McDonald through to the lead. Hayden Reeves filled third place in a great display of racing from the future stars of the sport.

South Australian Mathew Coombs raced to the Speedcar feature win from multiple Victorian Speedcar champion Darren Power and Tim Crouch in third. Coombs was the inau-gural winner of the Dot Allwell Memo-rial and her husband Frank was on hand to witness the race. Queen-slander Clayton Walker rounded out the top four finishers.

The V8 Dirt Modifieds were also in ac-tion on Saturday night and Trevor Perry impressed everyone with his ex-cellent drive in the final to win com-fortably. Daryl Hickson raced into sec-ond and Tony Moore scored third. Troy Scott raced into fourth while Ava-lon Raceway spokesman Jeff Drew found enough time to race his way into fifth driving son Scott’s V8 Dirt Modified.

2008/2009 AVALON RACEWAY SEASON RACE DATES

March 7 – Sprintcars SRA Eureka Se-ries R9 (Great Southern Showdown), V 8 D i r t M o d i f i e d s , S t r e e t Stocks March 21 - Wingless Sprints, Super Rods, Junior Sedans, Modified Produc-tion Sedans April 10 – Sprintcars Easter Trail Night 1, Super Rods, 4 Cylinder Demo Derby, Fireworks

Victory spoils for Drew © CLT Photography 08 Cassie Tuckett



KANE’S SUCCESS AT AVALON NSSS

Queensland Super Sedan champion Darren Kane dashed to the lead late in the National Super Sedan Series final held at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway on Saturday night, January 17. On a per-fect night for racing, Kane enjoyed the spoils of the racing victory while Com-bined Waste Services fittingly spon-sored the wildly popular Great Aussie Dunny Derby that thrilled the fans.

Darren Kane caught with the elbows and the wheels up in this brilliant pic by Geoff Gracie (left) was the A v a l o n round win-ner of the National Su-per Sedan Series re-cently.

It was another action packed night of entertainment with a great family at-mosphere as a healthy crowd enjoyed some close and exciting racing from not only the NSSS, but also the Modi-fied Production Sedans while the

‘pocket rocket’ Formula 500’s also pro-vided some popular results.

“It was a full night of racing and we appreciate the fans sticking with us to enjoy one of the most entertaining Dunny Derby’s we have ever seen,” explained Avalon Raceway’s Jeff Drew.

Just when Queensland Super Sedan ace Matt Pascoe looked to have the race win sewn up, Kane shot to the lead with only three laps left to run to

steal a memorable win. Pascoe and Kane were heavily favoured pre race and they didn’t disappoint with their side by side battle proving to be a highlight.

Tasmanian Brad Smith however gained the early ascendancy in the 35 lap final only to succumb to the pressure from the duo behind. Pas-coe was committed to the highline on a rougher than usual surface that provided plenty of exciting moments as he raced around the top.

Kane eventually crossed the line to win the final ahead of Pascoe and Smith who performed exceptionally well to round out the top 3 finishers.

Young New South Wales racer Lach-lin Onley finished next followed by Wayne Brims, Shane Best, David Nicholls, Tony Barklimore and Ron Bergmeier.

In a race that featured a high attri-tion rate, Bill Miller, Danny Amato and Lionel West were non finishers. Mick Nicola’s spectacular run also finished after he made unavoidable contact with a slowing Jarrod Harper on the back straight. Ron Pyne, Jack Childs, Sam Hughes, Craig Lappin, Mick Doblo and Steve Vaughan were other notable competitors to not fin-ish.

“It was an exciting and dramatic finish to the NSSS round and it looked like Pascoe couldn’t run the bottom and slipped up track allowing Kane to shoot through to the win. Sometimes those late race cautions help you and it cer-

tainly helped Kane last night,” ex-plained Drew.Local ace and former national cham-pion Justin Drew has found some great form recently as he sped to the win in the Modified Production Sedan final. Being a series round, Drew outran some quality opponents including Mark Carlin who finished second while Victo-rian champion Andrew Blackwell filled third. Graham West also looked set for a strong finish in his Torana until con-tact with another competitor sent him spinning infield.

Narre Warren youngster Liam Williams cruised to an easy win during the For-mula 500 final. Victorian champion Jes-sica Moulden kept him honest while Jesse Ellston performed well to race his way into third. The Formula 500’s created some close racing from the future stars of the sport as the cate-gory has produced such names as Ja-mie Veal, Tim Rankin and Darren Mol-lenoyux in recent years.



DREW DOMINATES VMPA AT AVALON

January 17th saw the return of the ‘Bass Highway Waste’ Victorian Modified Produc-tion Association to Geelong’s Avalon Race-way for the second time after a number of season’s absence from the venue and the fans were treated to a wonderful display of racing from all the drivers especially the winner, Avalon’s own Justin Drew.

Backing up from a win the previous week at the same venue Drew led high point’s scorer Mark Carlin and Victorian state champion Andrew Blackwell home in front of the large crowd. This weeks racing brought together the series travelers like Blackwell, Graham West, David Smith, Jer-emy McClure, Anthony Wilson, Phil Pottage and Neil Watson up against local regulars Drew, Carlin, Mick Hetherington and Calvin Watts.

In a change from the usual three sets of two heats Avalon were able to give the VMPA nine heat races to determine the qualifiers for the all important 25 lap final. Mark Carlin in the ‘Vickery Brothers Ground spread’ BF Falcon rode out a clean sweep of his three heats winning them all with Drew taking two heat wins to clinch the second position on the front row.

H1) Blackwell, Watts, HetheringtonH2) Drew, Smith, Kenny GriffeyH3) Carlin, West, Wilson

The most impressive of first round heat winners was Drew coming from sixth to take victory in his heat which also seen a wonderful battle between Smith and Grif-

fey across the line separated by paint thicknesses in a decision to decide second from third. Nathan Drew couldn’t get his new VZ Commodore to fire and Russell Hill shredded a tyre and pulled infield without a race start after a coming together with Kellie Atkins in the first attempt to get heat one underway.

H4) Watts, Blackwell, R.HillH5) Carlin, Griffey, Ver-hoevenH6) Wilson, Hethering-ton, Drew

Calvin Watts showed im-pressive ability to hold off Blackwell from last two second in taking victory with Carlin getting by Griffey who had held off Carlin for 7 laps also a fantastic heat race. The final heat in this round had four of the states best in a close finish when Wilson defeated Hetherington, Drew and West who all crossed the line within half a sec-ond of each other.

H7) Drew, Watts, HetheringtonH8) Smith, McClure, WestH9) Carlin, Wilson, Atkins

Whilst Drew romped to victory from the front row of his heat both Smith and Carlin had to push through from the third row in

their heats to claim victory. In heat nine a start by Bryan Hart and Russell Hill had to be aborted when Hill was squashed up against the wall ripping out the front end of his car leaving it out for the evening. Hart was deemed the cause of the acci-dent and sent to the rear of the field for the restart. Blackwell didn’t get to start his heat either as his window net fell down when a bolt broke holding it up before the

green flag could be waved to send the heat racing.

The 25 lap feature race for round four of the ‘Bass Highway Waste’ VMPA series had a grid for eighteen starters.The race got away with Drew stamping his authority early by claiming the lead coming out of turn two down the back straight for the first time. Carlin and Watts tucked in behind him with the rest of the field 10 metres back in their own battle for posi-tion. West in the LJ Torana was going on strong moving through the field to chal-lenge the front runners as was Blackwell.

Watts was the first major casualty to drop out of the race when a he had the tyre

come off the rim. Unfortunate part about it is that this could have been avoided if only Watts had bead locks which he hasn’t got-ten around to purchase. West had a mo-ment in turn two where he came off the race track and lost ground from the top four and slipped back through the field after re-joining in about tenth.

Michael Solomon in the BMW 2.8 litre pulled infield with smoke coming from un-der the bonnet when a rod broke in the engine whilst Griffey pulled infield when he lost fuel pressure due to damage on the adjuster of the regulator.Out front it was Drew who led all the way and went on to record victory ahead of constant adversary Mark Carlin and Black-well, Smith, Watson and the field.After victory Drew had this to say “We are on our way right now. Everything about the car feels good and it’s coming around to state title time with events at Murray Bridge and Warrnambool coming up. I’d like to thank my family (the Drew’s) for getting the VMPA event back on the calen-dar for this season and look forward to more good fortune in the coming weeks.”

The series now heads to Moama for Janu-ary 24th and round five of the ‘Bass High-way Waste’ series with points at the top end interesting given that Drew who has won two rounds didn’t compete in round two and failed to finish round three. Black-well has finished with a fourth, second, first and a third across the four features run and looks to be the man they all need to defeat.

Drew in action © CLT Photography 08 Cassie Tuckett



MOLLENOYUX WINS EUREKA SERIES AT HOR-

SHAM.

Warrnambool’s Darren Mollenoyux has reduced the gap between himself and Eureka Garages and Sheds Sprintcar Series leader Matthew Reed to just 50-points after a convincing win ahead of South Australian Glen Sutherland and Victorian Mike Van Bremen last night (January 10) in the sixth round at Hor-sham’s Blue Ribbon Raceway.

Mollenoyux was highest on points after the qualifying heat races, with his only blemish of the night coming in the top six time trial where he set the third fastest time, which meant he had to start the 30-lap final from the second row, rather than pole position.

South Australian Steven Lines was prominent with quick time, moving himself to pole position for the main event. Simpson youngster Tim Rankin was the big mover after qualifying sixth on points, he then set the second fast-

est time to set up a mouth watering front row alongside Lines.

Sutherland, Brett Milburn and Carl Ludeman were also strong qualifiers in the top six leading into the round six

Eureka Garages and Sheds Series fea-ture race.

The 30-lap event went non stop in front of a large Horsham crowd, with Mollenoyux sliding through for the race

lead on the opening turn ahead of Lines and Rankin.

Lap traffic was heavy at times and with the track wearing, Mollenoyux han-dled the conditions ex-tremely well and pulled away from the rest of the pack and at one stage even had series leader Reed in sights to lap.

Youngsters Lines and Ran-kin raced closely, which proved their undoing with a handful of laps remaining the pair became caught up in turn four and lost multi-ple positions.This opened the door for Sutherland, who has been closing in on a big result

and Horsham was his night as he held on for second place. Van Bremen started the final from seventh position and looked solid throughout the 30-laps to record third place.

One of the drives of the night went to last seasons rookie Sprint-c a r r a c e r Harley Bishop. The renowned



Speedcar racer won the B-Main event to qualify for the final, where he started 13th on the grid. With a perfect setup, Bishop rattled around Blue Rib-bon Raceway passing nine cars to fin-ish fourth ahead of Lines, Milburn, Ran-kin and Reed. Eureka Series regular Ron Dalton had a strong night at the office, qualifying 11th for the final to eventually finish ninth ahead of Ashley Bourke, Carl Ludeman, Nick Lacey, Phil Lock, Charles Hunter and Dennis Jones. Three time series winner John Vogels was the only casualty from the final, pulling infield during the race. The top three podium drivers all showed wearing signs of a 30-lap non stop race, with winner Mollenoyux crediting his crew for building a new car through the week. “Full credit to the crew – it’s a new car we built through the week. We got a little bit lucky at the start to hit the lead, we stuck in on the bottom and the car stuck nicely. I didn’t make any mistakes throughout the race and was actually surprised how quick the fea-ture went, the chequered flag took me by surprise, but I was very happy to see it,” said Mollenoyux.

Sutherland was rapt with his second place, admitting both himself and the car jelled together.

“It’s been a long time coming to get

the car on the podium, the cars been going really well and everything has jelled together tonight. Hopefully we can continue on from here,” the South Australian said.

Van Bremen had an up and down first half of the season, but the third place now gives him a good foundation for the remaining four rounds of the Eureka Series.

“We’ve fell behind in points a bit lately, so this result has helped us keep in touch with the leaders. It was a tough race 30-laps non stop, which was pretty exciting,” he said.

Earlier in the night 29 cars took the track for six heat races that seen a lot of exciting passing, with wins going to Reed, Lines, Sutherland, Ludeman, Mollenoyux and Dalton.

The next round of the Eureka Garages and Sheds Series will be held at Hamil-ton’s Western Speedway on February 21.

Eureka Garages and Sheds Sprint-car Series contingency awards:

LACEY PANEL WORKS ($100) Top Point Scorer – V52 Darren Mol-lenoyuxAMERICAN RACER TIRE Award (New American Racer R/R) ran-dom draw between finish position

6-16 in A-Main – V23 Ashley Bourke (10th)D&F RACING PRODUCTS Hard Luck of the Night – V11 Brad FosterCASCADE SOLUTIONS FOR CLEANING 5th place in B-Main ($100) – V51 Peter MilnesSMILEY’S RACING PRODUCTS Dis-count Voucher for 1st place in B-Main– V91 Harley Bishop JOHN SIDNEY RACING most cars passed in A-Main (end of series award) – V91 Harley BishopOverall leader – 1st V91 Harley Bishop (23), 2nd V6 Mike Van Bremen (14)3rd V73 Charles Hunter (13)HIGH ACE WINGS most B-Main main wins (end of series award) winner on the night – V91 Harley BishopRACER INDUSTRIES most heat wins during series (winners on the night) – V91 Matthew Reed, V45 Steven Lines, S20 Glen Sutherland, V14 Carl Ludeman, V52 Darren Mol-lenoyux, V44 Ron Dalton.Series Overall – Equal 1st V52 D Mollenoyux, S97 D Murcott, V9 Rod Matthews,V92 Matthew Reed, 3 heat wins each.

Eureka Garages and Sheds

Series Vmoto top ten:1st. V92 Matthew Reed – 18272nd. V52 Darren Mollenoyux - 17773rd. V6 Mike Van Bremen - 16524th. V91 Harley Bishop - 14605th. V47 Tim Rankin - 14466th. V9 Rod Matthews - 14297th. V68 Brett Milburn - 14108th. V37 Grant Anderson - 13309th. V70 John Vogels – 132210th. V14 Carl Ludeman - 1297

The EUREKA GARAGES & SHEDS Super Sprint Series sponsors:

EUREKA GARAGES & SHEDS, VMOTO, JOHN SIDNEY RACING, D&F RACING

PRODUCTS, MAXAM PRINTING, COREY GIBSON PHOTOGRAPHY, AMERICAN TIRE & RACING SERVICES, HI ACE

WINGS, CAMDEN NEON SIGNS, RACER INDUSTRIES, SPRINTCARWORLD,

SMILEY’S RACING PRODUCTS, LACEY PANEL WORKS, CASCADE SOLUTIONS

FOR CLEANING.



PITCHER PERFECT AT ROSEDALE

The SDAV Rods returned to Rosedale for ‘Open Wheel Night’ with seven of their finest making it into the pit enclo-sure before cut off time. A new edition to the category was Ron Gilligan in the # 92 ‘L & L Smash Repairs’ race car whilst Vaughan Matthey didn’t make it into the pit enclosure before cut off and missed the chance to debut in the category however his crew stayed on to help others. There was also a wel-come return to Allan Pitcher after re-covering from burns suffered at Port-land’s Southern 500 Speedway earlier in the season.

The first of three heats began with Kali Hovey and Pitcher on the front row and Pitcher sport-ing 7 Steel sponsorship on his #7 self made race car made the most of the front row start leading all the way from Jenkins who as-sumed second position right from the first lap and was able to hold that position ahead of Hovey, Dean West, Ray Welsh (#75 Donna’s Hair Designs) and Ron Gilligan until the finish. Glenn Lawless had a

rotten start to the night when bolts broke on the axle and he pulled infield after lap one.

West in the # 4 ‘Blackwood’s Industrial Supply’ car started pole position in heat two and had Pitcher alongside him. Once more Pitcher hit the lead quickly with Jenkins claiming second spot on lap two from West. Hovey was suffering major handling issues with her car and she dropped back through the field whilst Pitcher had a second all the way victory of the evening from Jenkins, West, Welsh, Gilligan and Hovey.

The final heat of the evening had a

West and Jenkins front row with the Victorian Champion Jenkins leading upto lap four before Pitcher roared on past. Pitcher held the lead until lap seven when he came off turn two and spun and the car caught fire. No last-ing or serious damage was caused and the car whilst Jenkins recorded the win from West, Welsh, Hovey, Gilligan and Lawless (#99 AJD Autotech) who was pleased to finish his first race of the evening having missed out the second heat repairing the axle.

The feature race grid lined up as fol-lows:

Phil JenkinsAllan Pitcher

Dean WestRay WelshKali HoveyRon GilliganGlenn Lawless

It was a great start for the # 1 P & S Automotive Services race car of Jen-kins as he led early from Pitcher and West. Pitcher though assumed the race lead by lap 4 with Jenkins tucked in second. On lap twelve West spun and lost third place to Hovey who also had spun earlier in the race. The battle be-tween Jenkins, West and Hovey was fierce and clean whilst Pitcher headed to victory. West reclaimed third spot from Hovey on the final lap with Pitcher, Jenkins, West, Hovey (# 22

Dandenong Iron Foundry), Welsh, Gilligan and Lawless being the final results.The next round of the Thun-der Down Under series heads to Drouin Speedway for a traditional Sunday race meeting with an 11am start on February 1st followed by Rushworth on the 14th of February and Rolling Thun-der Raceway on the 28th of February. In between these events on the 7th of Febru-ary the SDAV Rods support the ‘Podger Memorial’ at Simpson for the traditional SDAV vs Super Rod clash.



NYORA SPEEDBOWLJanuary 31st 2009

VSC SPRINTCARS.IT’S WAYNES WORLD AT

NYORA

Saturday the 31st of January all Gipp-sland Sprintcar fans were at South Gippsland’s Nyora Speedbowl for the 08/09 VSC Sprintcar title where Peter Logue would defend his title against the inform drivers this season of Mitch Foster, Michael Phillips and Wayne Logue.

The category is a very evenly matched class and despite the inform drivers for the season it was possible that Dennis Jones, Mal Siely, Rod Bowman or Mick Cook could figure in the results.

In the first of three heats our pole starter Foster (# 4 Market Street Autos – Foster Chassis) led for complete race distance leading home fifth place starter Jones and tenth place starter Wayne Logue. Peter Logue was next in the bunch from Siely, Cook, Shane Fisher, Warrick Taylor and Graeme Da-vies. Disaster in this heat for Phillips and Bowman who had a coming to-gether avoiding a spinning Davies in the first attempt to start. Both cars were left to park infield.

The second row of Peter Logue (# 8

Wynns/Pennzoil – Maxim Chassis) and Dennis Jones got past front row start-ers Bowman and Phillips in the second heat and they led home all challengers in that order with Cook, Bowman, Wayne Logue, Siely, Foster, Taylor, Fisher and Phillips making up the com-plete result.

Wayne Logue (# 6 U Pick Car Wreck-ers – XXX Chassis) made the most of his first front row start in the final heat for Sprintcars by going on to lead home fellow front row starter Mal Siely. Peter Logue was in third spot with Foster, Jones, Fisher, Cook, Phillips, Bowman and Taylor the official results.

The qualifying order for the 30 lap Vic-torian Speedway Council Sprintcar title was Peter Logue. Wayne Logue. Den-nis Jones, Mitch Foster, Mal Siely, Mick Cook, Rod Bowman, Warrick Taylor, Shane Fisher, Michael Phillips and Graeme Davies.

The race began with Wayne Logue getting the lead early. Bowman pulled out turn one on the first lap whilst Jones collected the front straight wall causing damage to his front end and nursing the car around to turn two and infield dodging the pack on his way off the track as they came through to put him a lap down. At the eight lap mark it was Wayne Logue leading Peter

Logue, Foster, Siely, Cook and Phillips.It took until lap 12 before the leader was able to put a lap on the last placed car which gave an indication of how evenly matched the race cars were for pace given the track is 380 metres long. Turn two proved to be the place to make the moves as Foster

picked off Peter Logue and moved into second and then the very next lap Siely (# 87 Plumtec/Clifton Mobile Homes) did the exact same thing shuf-fling Peter Logue back into fourth.

Lap 22 brought the next caution flag when Phillips hit the wall and ended

Victorian Speedway Council Sprintcar Champion Wayne Logue © CLT Photography



his night in the middle of the race track watching.

Last year Wayne Logue in the eyes of most was probably robbed of title vic-tory and this year he made good by roaring home ahead of Siely, Foster, Peter Logue and Mick Cook to become the 2008/2009 Victorian champion for VSC Sprintcars.

For the Nos Sprints making their first official Nyora appearance Dan Robson (# 29 Van Breman Motorsport – Foster Chassis) blasted away from the field to take victory in heat one from Dan Du-bois and Brett Milburn in the Mick Parry J & J # 44. Brad Warren, Troy Small, David McKay and Heidi Bessler tailed the top three home.

Heat two began with Milburn being sent rear of field for a clash of wheels between her and Mark Walsh. Young Gun Brad Warren in the KFC Warrnam-bool # 84 took the win ahead of Walsh, Small (#88 Brumbies Bakery –J & J Chassis), Robson, McKay, Gary Bowden, Dubois and Grant Attewell.

The final heat for Nos Sprints began interestingly when front row starter McKay went around through turn three and four and Warren had nowhere to

go accept straight into him. Warren was reinstated at the front row for the restart. Warren the eventual winner ahead of Bairnsdale’s Bowden then Du-bois, Walsh (# 22 Oval Action Race Products – Maxim), Small, Robson, Mil-burn, McKay, Attewell, Bessler and Sam Wren.

The fifteen lap feature event began with the following grid: Warren, Robson, Dubois, Small, Walsh, Bow-den, Milburn, McKay, Bessler, Attewell and Wren.

Warren got the early lead whilst McKay spun and joined the back of the pack. Dubois great night of racing ending early when he pulled infield on the re-start lap. On lap four Warren spun in turn four and Small in turn two and Warren lost the lead. Walsh took over the lead with 11 laps to go. Milburn and Robson were in hot pursuit and contact between them both put Mil-burn back in the pack. On the last lap having a crack at third place Milburn spun and the chequer flag dropped with Walsh the winner from Warren and McKay.

Visiting Sedan class Marsh Modifieds attended with a healthy field of cars and the stand out driver of the night Dale Kakoschke driving a EF Ford took the feature race spoils ahead of Craig Devlin (BA Ford), Dale Hallett (VL Com-

modore), Gregory Knight, Stewart Knight, Brett Orr, Michael Campbell and Phil Botheras. Earlier the heat vic-tories went to Dale Kakoschke with 2 and Devlin with 1. Jonathon Knight fin-ished in the top three in all heats.

Rick McCormack once again took the honours in the Open Independent Se-dans with Ray Gould, Mick Evans, Tim Cole, Dale Meade, Trevor Wise and Darren Skilton all finishing behind.

Ryan McKenna was the standout driver in Mini Sprintcars taking victory ahead of Danny Milton, Jason Andreatta and Murray Miles with Terry Williams the recently crowned Victoria #3 having a rollover in between turn one and two

to finish his night.

Speedcars were low in numbers with the president back at home ensuring that his house was protected from fire and as a result Brad Jackson took the win from Craig Smith and Dean Kavathas.

Finishing out the results in what was a massive race program was the Karts. Aaron Cook took out the Modified Club-man feature ahead of Brad King and Jamie Budge. Rex Gourlay defeated Lloyd Hobson in the Outlaw category and William VanDerark defeated Jamie Gourlay and Jack King in the juniors.

Nos Sprint Feature Winner – Mark Walsh © CLT Photography 08 Cassie Tuckett



Rory on the Button @ first ever NOS Sprint National Title.

Mt Gambier’s Rory Button added a historic first ever NOS Sprint Australian Champi-onship to his South Australian title after beating a huge field of highly fancied run-ners at Warrnambool’s Sungold Stadium on February 14th.Button won the inaugural Heytesbury Stockfeeds Australian NOS Sprint Title before a vocal crowd who were equally impressed with the stand out performance from highest qualifier Brad Warren who filled second ahead of local surprise packet Gary Bell in third.

The A-main for the championship was a fitting decider after whitling down the huge 58 car field to the top 18 after a series of 15 heat races.

Starting from position four, after a false start due to pole sitter Brendan Balcombe going early. Button jumped into second place behind Warren.

Warren was running up high against the wall as he led the first 10 laps of the 30 lap final before Button made the pass turn 1 and took the lead. Warren was then second ahead of another Adam Sealey followed by Mark Balcombe, Andy Hibbert, Luke Weel, Brendan Balcombe, Damien Meade, Gary Bell and Jack Meade in tenth.

As hard as he tried Button was unable to shake Warren (pictured left).

Bell was on the move and swept past Meade, Balcombe, Weel and Hibbert to find himself in fifth as the race was drawing to a conclusion before the events only cau-tion period when local chassis constructor Leigh Giblin coasted to a stop in turn 1 while he was running just outside the top 10.

With 8 laps left to run it was left to Button to lead away at the start from Warren while it was the all or nothing move of Bell that thrilled the fans as he raced from fifth to third in one move in turn 1.

For the first time in the event Button opened a handy break over Warren as he crossed the finish line to win the inaugural Australian NOS Sprint Title from Warren



and Bell. Sealey managed to maintain fourth while Hibbert also was a big mover over the final handful of laps in fifth. Mark Balcombe followed in sixth while B-main transferor and eighteenth starting Steve Trigg finished a credible seventh.

Sixteenth starting Damien Meade was eighth ahead of Weel, Jack Meade and pole sitter Brendan Balcombe. West Australian Lee Nash was twelfth ahead of Phil Micallef. Sprintcar ace Brett Mil-burn and Murray Lock were the final pair of finishers.

Hard luck story of the night wopuld have been Camperdown’s Jeff Judd who after some excellent heat race performances including a pair of wins and a fifth in his third heat with an ail-ing engine would see him as the sec-ond highest qualifier and drawn to start alongside of Warren in the cham-pionship final. A holed piston would stop him starting in the final.

Milburn won the B-main ahead of Da-mien Meade, Murray Lock and Steve Trigg. Finishing fifth was Jamie Veal ahed of Daniel Dubois, Jason Lang-don, Peter Walters, Kane Newcombe and Paul Drew in tenth. Ronald Trigg, Lee Meade, Ash Van Der Stelt and Tim McAvaney rounded out the finishers in fourteenth. Current Victorian champ Paul Robilliard didn’t get out of the B-main after his

fuel pump failed at a restart causing the chain of events that caused Shane Stevens to upend his mount. Ronald Trigg won the C-main ahead of Andy Caruana, Paul Drew and Peter Walters in fourth. All four advanced to the B-main while it was the end of the weekend for WA champion Marshall

McDiarmid, Peter Merrett, Steven Hod-der, Trevor Bullock, Gary Walsh and David McKay in tenth. Sean McKeever, Ash Armistead, Dan Robson, Grant At-tewell, Jye Saunders, Mark Sinnott and Marlin Walsh were also done for the weekend. Jeff Judd (2), Mark Balcombe, Warren

(2), Sealey (2), Bell, Nash, Sam Wren, Scott Drew, Button, Micalleff, Giblin and Brendan Balcombe all took heat wins.

Inaugural Australian NOS Sprint champ Rory Button in action at Sungold Sta-dium (below).



Sinclair Tames Tolmer.

Tolmer Speedway – Bordertown, South Australia – February 7th.

February 7th will go down as the hottest day in Victorian history, and just over the state line at Bordertown South Australia’s’ Tolmer Speedway it was Victorian Dale Sinclair who was the hottest thing taking his maiden RTS Chassis Australia Stam-pede Series for Formula 500’s feature win.

Sinclair, in his Powermac Racing Products V95 Yamaha (pictured) was part of a great battle between himself and fellow front row starter Liam Williams, with the pair sharing the lead before a critical series of events saw Sinclair hold sway ahead of Brett Willsher and South Aussie Scott Dungey with Williams a frustrated fourth.

“It was a very hot trip over there but I guess it was worth it in the end.” Said Sin-clair, the 20 year old university student. “It was a fairly simple night, we didn’t change anything on the car all night.”

Round six of the RTS Chassis Australia Stampede series proved useful as a final warm-up for the pocket rockets before the National Title returns to the venue in March, and many drivers took advantage of the opportunity for some familiarisation laps.“It was good to run here prior to the title,”

said Sinclair. “We’ve now had a look at the place and got an idea about gearing and set-up for the title. We’re not overly confi-dent about the title because there’ll be a lot of good drivers there but if we make the feature we’ll be happy.”

Williams (Autobarn Narre Warren V62) was originally not scheduled to contest this round but made a late decision to do so

and would have been pleased with that choice as he scorched from fifth to first in the opening heat setting the fastest lap along the way as he beat pole sitter Kevin Freeman (Red Dust Role Models V66) and Ian Smith (RTA Automation V13).Surprisingly, current Victorian Champion and defending series champion Jessica Moulden (McDonalds Excavations V1) started ninth and finished in that same position.

Sinclair went one better in heat two tear-ing through from seventh to first with an even quicker lap time as he beat Jason Pearson (W J Pearson Transport V16) and Phil Smith (SPW Engineering & Powder-coating V25).

Williams’ performance in heat three was almost identical to his first heat win as he

again pushed through form fifth place to take the win with a new fastest lap. This time around Moulden was firing and charged from seventh to second ahead of Freeman.

The heats were like de ja vu as Sinclair again came from seventh to win his sec-ond heat, heat four, this time from Will-sher (K & C Garages & Sheds V14) and Phil Smith.

“The track was a bit better for the early heats where you could pass up high.” Sin-clair explained. “We set our car up differ-ently to run the top and early on you could run the top and make the passes but then it went slick for the last couple of heats and the feature.”

The final two heats saw no heroic charges to victory as Stewart Townley (SA55) won heat five from pole ahead of Scott Dillon (Hoppers Crossing Smash Repairs V19) and Grant Fleming (Webber & Chivell V26). Townley, however was quick, setting the fastest lap of the night on the way to the win.Fellow crow eater Dungey (SA27) won the final heat from Willsher and Tim Hicks (CDS Welding Services V9) after starting from pole and leading every lap. Both Wil-liams and Sinclair paired up on the last row of the final heat but could only man-age fourth and fifth respectively. Sinclair had also been caught up in a mid race crash with a spinning back marker that bent the front axle.“It wasn’t too bad, it just tweaked the front axle a little so we had to change it before the feature.” Stated Sinclair.

After a pair of heat wins each it was Wil-liams who would start on pole for the 20 lap final from Sinclair separated only by their final heat results. Dungey, Hicks, Phil Smith, Willsher, Ian Smith, Freeman, Jack McCarthy (SA23), Matt Turner (Four Sea-sons Waste V32), Shane Van Duynhoven (Dutchman Performance V52), Pearson, Jeremy Beddison (Wimmera Machine Shop V45), Jack Lee (Lilley’s Lane Quarries V5), Dillon, Steven Horton (V91), Fleming and Townley were next.



On the first attempt to race Williams got the jump on Sinclair then on the next at-tempt Sinclair got the jump and led the first three laps before Williams worked his way underneath and into the lead where he stayed until lap eighteen when he and Sin-clair crossed the finish line side by side with a lapped car in between. Sinclair at that point was about a wheel in front of the lapped car (this proved to be pivotal) with a similar gap back to Williams who shortly after crossing the line retook the lead. The lead pair completed a further lap and a half before there was a caution period. Unfortu-nately, even though the leaders had com-pleted another full lap, the majority of the field hadn’t so the restart order was to be as at lap 18 when Sinclair was leading. Up until this point it had been an amazing race as the lead pair had diced their way through the field lapping cars left, right and centre. “No one else was even in the ball park!” Exclaimed chief time keeper Chris Olsson.Williams then pulled infield to question why he was being restarted in second believing he should be restarting in the lead. When he was told he was not the leader for the green, white, chequered two lap dash he was obviously upset with the decision and his exit from the infield led to him being put back two spots before the restart due to the manner in which he angrily rejoined the track.This allowed Willsher to take the runner up position ahead of Dungey, an irate Wil-liams, Phil Smith, McCarthy, Lee, Hicks, Ian Smith, Freeman, Van Duynhoven, Dillon, Turner, Fleming and Horton.

“We were probably not the fastest car there but we got the result. It was a great

race with Liam and it’s unfortunate for him about the circumstances.” Said Sinclair about his second ever feature victory and first Stampede Series win. “I want to thank my Dad - Mack, Nathan Rees and Johnny Pearson and also Powermac Racing Prod-ucts, Ash Sinclair Signs and Christian’s Bus Company for their support.”

The next round of the exciting RTS Chassis Australia Stampede Series which has seen a different winner at every round so far, is scheduled for Avalon Raceway on February 21st. Round five winner Williams will be looking to break the trend and get his sec-ond win of the season while defending champ Jessica Moulden is due a change of luck and will be looking to reproduce her win here from last season.

Sullivan and Williams take RTS Series wins at Mt Gambier and Avalon.

With the hectic Oval Express International Series over, there has been no let up for Victorian Formula 500 runners with two rounds of the RTS Chassis Australia Stam-pede Series conducted over consecutive weekends at Mt Gambier on January 10th

and Avalon on January 17th.

Young Victorians were to the fore in both round four and five where Chad Sullivan took the win at Mt Gambier with Ash Hicks and defending series champion Jessica Moulden next while Liam Williams scored the series win at Avalon beating home Moulden and Jesse Ellston in a time trun-cated feature.

Round four – Mt Gambier January 10th.Making a one off series appearance in Brett Willshers’ K&C Sheds and garages, Swift racing Products, Jettco Developments #14, Sullivan made the most of the opportunity taking a dominant victory at the track in which the cars owner won the correspond-ing round last season.

Unlike the last time the pocket rockets hit the Borderline Raceway, there were no ma-jor incidents and crashes and while some drivers said the track was a little rough, the racing was trouble free.

The heat races were a case of if you started up front you were likely to finish up front as Moulden (McDonald excavations

#1) led home James Hennessey and Tim Van Ginneken (Pre Mix King #15) in heat one.

South Australian Michael Wise (Wise Truck Repairs #88) led all the way to win heat two from Jeremy Beddison (Wimmera Ma-chine Shop #45) and Dale Sinclair (Powermac Racing Products #95).

Moulden scored again in heat three from Van Ginneken and Matt Turner (Four Sea-sons Waste #32). Sullivan was clearly get-ting comfortable in the Willsher #14 as he pushed from 10th to 4th.

Wise copied Moulden by winning his sec-ond heat this time from Scott Dillon (Hoppers Crossing Smash repairs #19) and Ash Hicks (RTS Chassis Australia #28).



Simon Craven (LGM Race Products #20) finally got a good run going to win heat five from Shayne Van Duynhoven (Dutchman Performance #52) and Hicks after Kate Searle (Leading Car Care Centre #36) and Phil Smith (SPW Engi-neering & Powder coating #25) had spent some time at the pointy end of the race.

The final heat was an all the way win for Dillon from Sin-clair and Sullivan who’d started 8th.

From pole position Sullivan led every one of the 20 laps while the battle for second place was not so straight for-ward as first Dale Sinclair held the spot until Moulden took over. Series sponsor Ash Hicks, then put his RTS chassis to good use after making a run from his seventh place start-ing position and taking the runner up place on lap 17 push-ing Moulden back to third.Behind the top trio came Turner, Dillon, Ian Smith (RTA #13), Jock Baker (RTS Chassis Australia #29), Steven Hor-ton, Kate Searle and Grant Fleming (Webber & Chivell #26).

Sullivan’s win was amazing considering he hasn’t been in a race car for nearly two years.“We didn’t set out to win, we were just here to get a feel for the car,” understated Sullivan. “After 21 months out of the seat I was a bit rusty in the first couple of heats but you’d expect that.”“I have to thank Ken, Cheryl and Brett Willsher for giving me this opportunity.” Continued Sullivan. “Ken is great with this cars. I told him what needed changing, he’d change it and I think that was the difference between us and the others.”

Round five - Avalon January 17th.

After his mega performances against the all conquering Americans in the oval express series, Narre Warren’s Liam Williams missed round four of the RTS Chassis Australia Stampede Series but returned with a vengeance at Avalon for round five.

Williams (Autobarn Narre Warren #62) led all 14 laps of the feature which was cut short due to time constraints.

Moulden again finished on the podium in second with Jesse Ellston finally getting the two stroke engine going well and grabbing the final podium position after starting back in 9th

place.

Dillon led heat one for the first six laps before Williams took over for the win with Avalon veteran Kevin Freeman (Red Dust Role Models #66) back in third.

Graham Mollenoyux was back in the fold and scored the heat two win from Andrew Blackstock (Jig g Ag Contracting #75) and Phil Smith.

The first two heats had been only eight laps long due to a programming error but the remainder were contested over the scheduled ten laps.

Williams scored his second heat win in heat three while

Moulden charged from 8th to 2nd ahead of Van Duynhoven. Again Dillon led early before Williams came through.

Heat four fell to Mollenoyux again from Blackstock and Beddison.

Brady Cudia scored the win in heat five leading home Series sponsors Baker and Ash Hicks.

Moulden defeated Turner and Williams in the final heat.

In the feature event Williams and Moulden held first and second for each of the 14 laps while Ellston grafted from ninth to third. Behind them came Beddison, Sinclair, Ian Smith, Van Duynhoven, Freeman, Phil Smith and Searle.

“Things went really good for us, it all went smooth.” Said Williams who is not chasing the whole series. “I used to like the hooky tracks but this new car seems to work

good on everything so I’m looking forward to the rest of the season now.”

Baker cooks in Simpson RTS Chassis Australia Stampede.

Jock Baker aims to keep his own series sponsorship money in his pocket after taking his maiden F500 feature race vic-tory in round two of his self sponsored RTS Chassis Austra-lia Stampede Series at the egg shaped Simpson Speedway last Saturday (December 6).For round two of the series it was an all new podium with Brady Cudia and Ian Smith completing the top three. It was a good night for the series sponsors with two of the three top place-getters driving 2008 model RTS chassis.

Some observers thought Baker was quick and was going to



win the feature with or without others misfortune.“I don’t know about that.” Said a modest victor. “I thought I was lucky to win. Jess (Moulden) was pretty quick.

The win was Bakers first in the Formula 500 ranks in what will be his first full season in the little cars.“I was pretty pumped about the win. I was pumping my fists in the air and it was really good especially seeing as we sponsor the series.” He expressed.

Heat racing was again an open affair with no single driver capable of taking more than one win.

Young Scott Dillon got the meeting off to a great start by leading home Brett Willsher and Phil Smith in heat one. Defending series champion Jessica Moulden found the early going hard and was only able to move from her eleventh place starting position to an eighth place finish. Tim Van Ginneken was the big mover jumping from ninth to fourth.

Twin brother Leigh Van Ginneken driving the W98 jumped pole sitter and co-series sponsor Tim Hicks at the start of heat two and was never headed on the slip-pery rain affected track as Ash Hicks and Jesse Ellston led home rookie James Hennessey who’d charged from ninth to fourth.

Heat three was waved off a lap early after a communi-cation error between the lap scorers and the flaggie, how-ever Tim Van Ginneken had more than half a second lead over Willsher and Mark Smith at the time. Van Ginneken had started ninth but a demon first two laps set up the win. Moulden again struggled from deep in the pack starting tenth and finishing sixth.

After dropping out of his first heat, Ian Smith made amends by winning heat four from Dale Sinclair and Hen-nessey. Smith had started fifth and had passed the potent Leigh Van Ginneken on the way to the front.

Kate Searle put a score on the board for the girls by win-ning heat five after she took the lead from Ian Smith on lap

nine of the ten lap heat. Smith was followed across the line by Matt Turner.

Moulden finally showed the form that everyone was ex-pecting as she started fourth but hit the front by lap three of the final heat. Mark Smith had led the first two laps be-fore finishing second with Hennessey again making ground going from eighth to third.

Rookie Hennessey had secured his first pole position in only his second round of competition with Tim Van Ginne-

ken alongside followed by Sinclair, Leigh Van Ginneken, Mark Smith, Moulden, Turner, Kieran Towan, Baker, Tim Hicks, Cudia, Ian Smith, Searle, Shane Van Duynhoven, Steven Horton, Grant Fleming, Kevin Freeman, Jesse Ellston and Marcus Hienrich.

From his pole start Hennessey led the field away who quickly fell into line pretty much in qualifying order except for Baker who’d jumped two spots on the initial lap.

Hennessey led on from Tim and Leigh Van Ginneken with Moulden starting to work through with Baker following her example. As positions behind him changed about, Hennes-sey continued to lead much to the delight of the Aus-Crane

Trucks crew. At the half way point Hennessey was still lead-ing with Moulden now in second and Baker back in fifth. Moulden hit the lead on lap eleven as Hennessey’s great run ended after he unsuccessfully tried to squeeze past a lapped car and rolled. Baker was flying and had now moved to second.

The weather had affected the track and a rut had devel-oped in turn three and four, which many drivers continued to hit lap after lap. With just five laps left to run Mouldens' night was over after she hit the rut and spun. She re-fired

but then pulled infield with damage to the VIC1.Baker was now in unfamiliar territory at the head of the feature, while Ian Smith and Cudia, from 12th and 11th

respectively, were now fighting hard for the runner up position which Cudia captured on lap 19.

Baker went on to win by just under one second from Cudia who opened a similar gap on Smith over the last two laps. Completing the runners were Mr. Consistent -Matt Turner, Mark Smith, Ellston, Searle, Tim Hicks, Van Duynhoven, Freeman. Towan and Fleming.

“In the first heat I missed the set-up and spent plenty of time on two wheels out of the ruts,” Admitted Baker. “We made some changes for the second heat and got the car handling a bit better. We made some more changes for the feature but I think it was more that the track changed and suited our car rather than our

changes suiting the track.”“I made a good start and was up to fifth and then I was dicing with Leigh (Van Ginneken) until he dropped out. Then when Hennessey rolled it was just me and Jess (Moulden). She got a good jump on me at the restart but then I came down into the corner and saw she had spun.”“I only raced six meetings last season so to win this is just great.” Said the 34 year old Horsham resident.

“I like Hamilton, I’ve had a lot of success there in the lim-ited Sportsmans.” Said Baker ahead of the up coming event. “I’ve never run a (formula) 500 there though and we go in the opposite direction so we’ll just have to see how it all goes.”



Wallis wins warm-up and nabs night one of the AMCA

Barry Reidy Memorial @ Avalon.

Triple Australian AMCA Nationals Champion Adam Wal-lis had the best possible warm up to his National title de-fence when he punted Paul Sullivans’ Container Fumiga-tion Services #28 to the win in the traditional Boxing Day event at Avalon Raceway last night (December 26th).

The event which was also the first leg of the two night Barry Reidy memorial, was the perfect tonic for Wallis who has had a limited season in other peoples cars.

“Adam felt he needed the extra miles under his belt, so we offered him our car.” Said an obviously happy car owner, Sullivan. “Adam’s good with these chassis and we learnt a lot tonight so it was good for both of us.”

“I have to thank Paul for letting me run his car, and I’m glad we could get a win for him.” Said Wallis. “This will give us some confidence heading into the title.”

Wallis didn’t have things all his own way and was made to work hard for the win having to overcome pole sitter and quick contender Mick “Action” Jackson (Kingston Automotive #39) and Bendigo’s Darren Clarke (DC’s Car Carriers #66).

With some contenders electing to save their machines for the National Championship, which was just four days and two states away, a couple of regular aces were absent, however a good field of 27 cars were on hand including rookie Marcus “Lightning McQueen” Reddecliffe and first time Avalon visitor Kallan Muir from Tasmania.

The AMCA’s were out very early in the night and for the first series of heats the track was slippery and one lane.

Wallis however, was able to find a way forward to take the win from Frank Thierry (Juicy Boy Citrus #7) and Kevin Peachey (Hot Impressions Cool Images #51).

Heat 1B was still one lane and slippery but Chris Overall (Ballarat Driveshafts #10) was trying to bring the high line in to no avail. Sandi Hickman (Beeps Auto Parts #19) won from pole ahead of Daniel Scott (Laffans Accident Repair Centre #91) and Clarke. Campbell Hughes had been run-ning third in the Voodoo Ride #21 until it lost a fan belt late in the race.

Heat 1C saw Muir (Devonport Discount Meats T79) drop in on his way north and he was in the mix until caught up in a melee. Jackson scored the win ahead of David Best in Chris Best’s Hogan’s Truck alignment #27 and Grant Cull-inger’s unsponsored #41.

When the cars came out for their second set of heats the track was in much better shape. Wallis had a lucky escape when a start line shuffle saw him spat out of the pack spin-ning onto the infield. A complete restart was in order Wal-lis worked through a number of stoppages to take the win

from Rod Duncan (T C Oakley Automotive #57) and Robert Taylor (Braybrook Auto Wreckers #14).

Heat 2B was pretty clean with Clarke winning from Hughes and Scott.

The final heat was a bit scrappy with a few incidents but in the end Jackson scored again from Kristy Ellis (Outlaw Race Trailers #58) and Shea Bradley (Hilltop Security).

The B-Main was straight forward with Darran O’Reilly (Justin O’Reilly Race Engines #99) leading from go to whoa. David May (Emjay Signs #98) worked his was into a transfer ahead of Bill Lodwick Jnr’s #13, Alan Howe (Victoria Gearboxes #64), Adam Timberlake (Bassett #33), Ellis, Jacquie Clark (Star Studio Per-formance & Arts Space #29) and Reddecliffe (TKP Transport #95).

The two dual heat winners Jackson and Wallis would start the 20 lap feature from the front row and it was Jackson who made the best start to lead away and open a small gap over Wallis and Clarke. Hughes was on a highline charge and would work his way up to fourth and was challenging Clarke.Meanwhile out front Jackson had a small gap over Wallis but then Wallis started to close in. As the lead pair closed in on lapped traffic things got exciting as they raced side by side for a couple of laps. Wallis was

in the box seat and using the lapped traffic snookered Jack-son and took the lead. Tim Reidy (Reidy the Wreckers #3) spun and was left on the infield for a couple of laps before re-firing and then with four laps to go Hughes sheared the left side wheel studs off the #21. “It was better that it happened here rather than in Queensland (the Australian Title).” Was his out-look on the incident. When Duncan, Hickman and Thierry had a group spin with three laps left to run the race was declared with Wallis the victor (pictured) from Jackson, Clarke, Best, Cullinger, Reidy, Bradley, O’Reilly, Peachey, Duncan and Thierry.



BLAST FROM THE PAST - LES FELTHAM

Lucky Les Feltham, a force to be reckoned with in sedan car racing in Victoria during the 70,80 and ninetiesRight: Who could forget the wing number on the HQ Monaro. Les claimed that the rules stated that there was only a minimum roof number size with no maximum, hence the Sprintcar side board. Left: Les about to board the Chev Camaro. Les is still involved in Speedway as the pace car driver at Rolling Thunder Raceway.



DROUIN SPEEDWAYThe Family Speedway

Drouin Speedway was once again full noise on Sunday 1st of February with the annual Riley Memorial for 6 Cylinder Standard Saloons sharing the limelight with the visiting SDAV Hot Rod’s who travelled to Drouin for the first time in more than 25 years.

Six heats were on the cards to deter-mine whom was going to be top quali-fier and defending champion Paul Cra-dle from the Rosedale Speedway club in a XF Falcon began his title defence well with victory in heat one after starting at the rear of the pack. Jaryd Hooper came second and Shane Ardley third. Rob Langston from the front row took victory in heat two from Jason Lennard and John Watson who pushed forward from fifth.

Cradle again won in heat three from

Jason Nash and Scott Randall whilst Lennard took the win in the fourth heat from Watson and Langston who started eighth. The final two heats two offer qualifying points began with Hooper victorious over Langston and Watson and Cradle taking a clean sweep when he won the last ahead of Ardley and Randall.

The feature field lined up with the fol-lowing order: Cradle, Langston, Hooper, Ardley, Watson, Lennard, Randall, Andrew Morris, Jay Miles, Nash, Lachie Lebrun, and Wayne Tooze.

At the drop of the green Cradle asserted authority to lead from Hooper and Langston. The race was fast at the front with some passing moves taking place before Nash became the first major casualty in the event to pull infield as a non finisher.

The minor placings changed a number of times and Lennard was a serious challenger for a top three place before

finding himself at the rear of the field. Cradle took the win from Langston and Drouin Speedways Hooper. Randall, Tooze, Morris, Miles and Lennard all fin-ished.

The thunderous SDAV Hot Rod’s set Drouin alive with the roar of their V8’s and they dished up plenty of action in their three heats and a final. From seventh

place on the grid Alan Pitcher stormed through the pack to take the lead on the 7th lap from Phil Jenkins and go on to win with Jason Kavanagh in third ahead of Maryknoll’s Dean West then Rod Smith & Vaughan Matthey.

The second heat gifted an all the way victory to Kavanagh whom started pole and led home Pitcher, West and Mat-they. Smith and Jenkins didn’t finish when Smith spun in turn 3 and 4 and Jenkins with no room ploughed into him.

The final heat Smith didn’t make the field as he was still repairing massive

SDAV Rods at Drouin © CLT Photography 08 Cassie Tuckett



front end damage and Kavanagh led the complete race from the front with Pitcher second again then Kali Hovey who drove fantastically well, West, Ray Welsh and Matthey.

The grid for the feature race began with top qualifiers at the rear of the field and Welsh on pole. Smith was alongside, then Hovey and Matthey, Jenkins and West and Pitcher and Kavanagh on the last row. Smith made the field with assistance from Hovey who lent him a beam to help fix front end damage. Fellow car owner Ron Jones chipped in to help as did Mat-theys crew.

Old timer and legend of the sport Ray Welsh must have thought he was at Tracey’s Speedway in a field of dreams as the 70 year old led the first three laps ahead of Jenkins and Smith before Jenkins grabbed the lead. Pitcher got past Welsh around lap 7 and jumped in the lead on lap 9. Welsh held the pack at bay as he chased Jenkins for second and when the chequer dropped it was Pitcher, Jenkins, Welsh, Kavanagh, Smith, West, Hovey and Matthey fin-ishing the 15 lap feature.Also on the program the ladies Stan-dard Saloons once again provided a great battle between Anne Gooding and Teagan Bullard with Gooding tak-ing the spoils with Darlene Parkinson third.

Division 2 Hot Rods heat race victories

went to John Dike Jnr and Craig O’Con-nell whilst the feature was won by Dike Jnr in a hard thought victory ahead of O’Connell, Gavin Allman, Trish Dike, Rob Tatterson and Ame O’Connell.

V8 Standard Saloons feature race went the way of Leigh Gooding from Terry Bullard and Justin Low. Junior Stan-dard Saloons once again attended with a healthy field of cars and after Cam-eron Dike’s seat belts came undone and forced him infield Cindy-Lee Drew-ery went on to take the win from Justin Smith and Anthony Brennan. At one stage Mal Brennan had the race shot to pieces before an accident and spins forced him to the very back of the field.

FULL POWER AT DROUIN FOR DARREN POWER

Drouin Speedway roared to the sound of the visiting Speedcars on Sunday 11th of January with a handful of driv-ers backing up from the night previ-ous at Avalon Raceway by making the trip to Drouin in Gippsland. Some wonderful local sponsors chipped in to support the Speedcars with West Gippsland Welding Supplies, Victory Lane Racegear, YGP Trafalgar and DP Blasting adding extra spice with prizes donated to the first four places.Brad Jackson in his Mopar Aggressor did the job in heat one taking victory from Dean Kavathas, Darren Power, David Crabtree, Craig Smith and Rich-

ard Emmerson whilst the second heat was Powers leading home Jackson, Emmerson, Smith, Crabtree and Kavathas.The final was fast and furious with a drum of methanol up for grabs for first and a right rear tyre for second, steer tyre for third and Racing Optics for fourth. Jackson got away early with Power chasing until Jackson spun sending him to the rear and Power into the lead.Not long after at the restart Kavathas went high into turn one and collected his right rear on the concrete wall end-ing his feature race. Power motored on in front without too much trouble to defeat car owner Crabtree, Smith,

Jackson and Emmerson. Program Co-Ordinator Matt Eastham was pleased with the Speedcars racing. “The racing was wonderful and they handled the sand based track here well. I hope the Speedcars can continue to gain num-bers in Victoria and would love to see them back here next season. Thanks to the sponsors that helped us out here to convince the Speedcars to come out to go racing here at Drouin.”Division 2 Hot Rods attended with 10 race cars and that meant a lot of com-petition for locals John Dike Jnr and Trish Dike and visitors Craig O’Connell, Gordon Angus and Scott Laidlaw were the first three home in heat one whilst Gavin Allman, Angus and Rob Tatter-

Dean Kavathas at Drouin © Cassie Tuckett 08 CLT Photography



son took out placings in the second.The feature race was fantastic. O’Con-nell, Angus, Tatterson, Allman and Laidlaw had a wonderful five way bat-tle early in the race whilst both the Dikes were at the back of the field. As the race rolled on, Angus found himself towards the end of the field and John Dike Jnr stormed forward to snatch victory on the last lap coming out of turn two to lead home O’Connell, Tatterson, Trish Dike, Laidlaw, Gordon Angus and Daniel Angus.Important club category the Standard Sa-loons once again ran Men’s, Ladies and Junior events. The Juniors had great num-bers with representation from Drouin, Alex-andra, Moe, Nyora and Rosedale Speed-ways and it was local driver Cameron Dike and Alexandra driver Anthony Brennan who won the heats before Rosedale’s John Scandrett took out the feature from Cindy-Lee Drewery and Cameron Dike.Ladies racing was fantastic with Anne

Gooding winning all three events however Teagan Bullard did a fantastic job chasing Gooding in the big V8 sedan not letting her get far away at all. Feature race placings Gooding, Bullard and Darlene Parkinson.Men’s Standard Saloons also had a larger than average entry list with drivers enter-ing next months 6 Cylinder Standard Sa-loon feature having a go on Drouin to try to get an advantage over others. Four heats were run with Terry Bullard, Leigh Gooding, Jacob Vuillerman and Jarryd Hooper. The feature race was fantastic with a massive fourteen cars finishing com-plete race distance with the Commodore of Gooding leading home Jason Leonard, Terry Bullard, Shane Ardley and Hooper.Mini Sprintcars heat victories went to Matt Parsons and then Chris Milton before the feature race was won by Jason Andreatta from Milton and Murray Miles after Ray Aarts had a massive crash coming out of turn four ripping out his front end and damaging his right rear when he collected the concrete wall.

Division 2 Hot Rod feature winner John Dike Jnr © Cassie Tuckett 08 CLT Photography



WREN RACING TEAM WREN RACING TEAM “HAPPY AT HAMILTON”“HAPPY AT HAMILTON”

Western Speedway in Hamilton was where the 3 Litre Sedan Association headed on Australia Day weekend for round three of this years Ramsdale Wreckers/Horvath Transport Services series. More than twenty cars attended the race meeting with the biggest show of support from the drivers so far this season.

Amongst competitors were the current State Champion Rodney Burr, home track hero Jack McClure, Modified Se-dan regular Justin Alberni and in form young gun James Wren. The round was well supported by a number of drivers from the Horsham Speedway Club and some drivers making a wel-come return for the first time this sea-son to association racing such as Len-nie Clark, Scott Mallon, Ross Burrows and Peter Bodger.

The first of six heats began with front row starter Burr shooting away quickly only to spin on lap one and find himself joining the rear of the field. Horsham’s Brett Luey from fourth position on the grid went on to win from Scott Mallon in the Nissan Skyline after he took the lead in turn one on the last lap then came Dale Morrison, McClure who had started tenth, Troy Simpson who fol-lowed him through the field having started eleventh then Burr, Peter Temby, Burrows, Steve Hately, Zac Swanson and Andrew Wilson.Commodore driver Damian Miller in a former Victorian championship winning Andrew Blackwell car made the most of his front row start in heat two by going on to defeat Jeff Leahy, Wren, Matt Gerlach, Alberni, Nick Hill, Clark, Bodger, Steve Sutherland and Will Lamb. Alberni discovered after the heat that he had a blown head gasket whilst Sutherland had water leaking from a welsh plug, the Lamb team were com-ing to grips with set up as they tried something new and Peter Temby un-fortunately blew a gearbox and sad-dled up to go home.From fifth position Simpson from fifth came home the winner in the third heat with McClure, Burrows, Swan-

son, Morrison, Hately, Luey and Mal-lon. Mallon was suffering over heating concerns which despite the new turn of speed the Skyline was showing was a re-occurrence of trouble from last sea-son. The major news from this heat

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was that Burr the man to beat in recent seasons was out for the weekend after sustaining major damage during the hustle and bustle of the racing before a loose front end on the car turned him inwards off turn four and into the path of Morrison who had nowhere to go and punched the Burr race car into the wall where a tail shaft broke amongst other race components.

Pole position was all Wren needed to assure himself of a victory in the fourth stanza when he led home Sutherland, Alberni, Clark, Hill, Bodger, Gerlach, Miller, Lamb and Leahy. The Leahy team had major spring and shock issues causing them to not go forward in this heat and Alberni looked impressive in the Russell Hill VS Commodore he was driving for Hill Family Racing.McClure in the Hamilton registered UC Torana took the win in front of family in heat five with Swanson following him then came Simpson, Burrows, Morrison, Luey and Hately. Wilson lost a right rear wheel that came completely off the race car and was unable to finish.The final heat of the evening resulted in Sutherland taking the win from Bodger in his best drive of the evening holding out Wren who was on a charge from eight. After them came Lamb, Gerlach, Hill, Miller and Alberni. Massive action in this race came when Clark and Alberni came side by side out of turn two where it was likely that Clark hit a rut and washed up the track that resulted in Alberni coming around the boards being crashed into sending the ‘Ramsdale Wreckers/GB Race cars’ Commodore upside down and into the fence. Clark was unable to finish whilst Alberni sat infield and somehow managed to cross the start finish line in his demolished race car before heading to the pit enclosure to put it on the trailer for the long trip back to the car builders for inspection.

The field for the feature qualified as follows:James Wren – Bluescope Steel Ballarat/Wren DieselJack McClure – Daylesford Dyno/A & J Water CartageTroy Simpson – O’Brien’s AMS Race Engines/Simmo’s FibreglassSteve Suther-land – Ansell Dyno Tuning/Pioneer EarthBrett Luey- Warners Service Station DimboolaDamian Miller – Town & Country Tennis Courts/Bob’s Dyno TuningDale Morrison – Pakenham 4 x 4 Recyclers/Blackwell’s Bodyworks.Zac Swanson – Skyrider Tower Hire/Trueline Steering & Suspension.Ross Burrows – Sebastopol Smash Repairs/Richard Burrows Plumbing.Peter Bodger – WJ Pocock & Sons Transport/Lara Auto Wreckers.Matt Gerlach – Horsham Professional Photo graphics/Horsham Auto Wreckers. Scott Mallon – Rentchs Auto Salvage/Dingo Autosport.

Nick Hill – Ramsdale Wreckers/GB Race cars.Will Lamb – Daylesford Dyno/ A & J Asphalting and Bobcat Hire.Lennie Clark – Permapave/Richies Auto Reconditioning.Steve Hately – Horsham Concrete

Racing got underway for twenty five laps with Wren gaining the advantage early and McClure, Simpson, Sutherland, Luey and Miller all close behind as they shuffled themselves into an order. McClure was the first to buckle when braking issues seen him start to slide backwards in the field. Luey drove well early in the race only to find himself out around one third distance.

As the field forged forward Lamb, Swanson, Morrison and Hill were the secon-dary group on a charge. Controversy reigned when for a number of laps McClure drove around with his window net down before the chief steward finally noticed it. As he was about to pull on the yellows. Sutherland spun out of turn two and Lamb went around also. The steward put the drivers back into their positions in the field much to confusion of the other drivers. McClure was deemed to be the cause of the stoppage as the steward was calling for a yellow at the time of the spin. Whilst the steward told the race driver who had his win-dow net up in place by now he could start rear of field, the driver himself chose not to as his brakes were well and truly stuck and dangerous by now.

The race resumed and Wren, Simpson and Sutherland roared around Western Speedway at a great rate of knots with Lamb coming on strong in the set up his father Albert Lamb was trying for this evening. Morrison put the pressure on as the race neared an end and when the chequer flag dropped the results stood as Wren, Simpson, Sutherland, Lamb, Morrison, Swanson, Miller, Hill, Burrows, Bodger, Gerlach and Clark. Luey didn’t finish due to over heating, Mallon pulled infield when a coil wire came off and Hately didn’t finish due to a flat left tyre.

The race winner was delighted. “Wow, what can I say the feeling at the mo-ment is fantastic. We have worked hard for this victory. I’d like to thank the whole team for their efforts and Troy and Steve for the fast clean racing at the front. Thanks to Hamilton Speedway club also for supporting the association.”

The 3 Litre Sedan Association thank its major season sponsors for 08/09 in Ramsdale Wreckers. Horvath Transport Services and B & H Scrap Recyclers and look forward to the next round at Rushworth Speedway on the 14th of February.



WELSH WINS IN A RUSH AT RUSHWORTH

February 14th the SDAV Hot Rod crew headed up the Hume Highway to Rush-worth Speedway as guests of the Goulburn Valley Auto Club for round 6 of the Thun-der Down Under Series in what was to be a landmark day in the club with the return to the winners circle of veteran Ray Welsh, good ole ‘Ricochet’!

The first of three heats was led away by Kali Hovey (# 22 Dandenong Iron Foun-dry) and Rod Smith with Allan Pitcher on the second row with Glen Lawless. Before the field crossed the start line to end the first lap, Pitcher was leading with Hovey behind him and Phil Jenkins third. That’s the way the top three stayed whilst Smith lost a brake caliper and Ron Gilligan broke and axle. Dean West finished fourth, then rookie Chris Shaw the President of GVAC and Welsh then Lawless (# 99 AJD

Autotech).

Lawless began in pole position for the sec-ond stanza with Jenkins alongside and it was Jenkins taking the lead early with eight spot starter Pitcher charging through the field to take the lead on the fifth lap. Chris Shaw (# 6 Andersons Wholesale Fruit and Vege Stanhope) had his first spin in the class having stepped out of his Su-per Sedan for this race meeting. Pitcher won from Jenkins, West, Smith (# 14 Complete Signs), Hovey, Welsh, Shaw and Lawless.

The final heat of the evening had Hovey and West at the front and it was Hovey who led with West being passed by Pitcher early and then involving himself in a great battle with Jenkins. Jenkins (# 1 P & S Automotive Services) passed West and West (# 4 Ace Timber & Fencing) got him again later. Hovey however did a fine job in the lead right up until the last lap when Pitcher pinched the win. After Jenkins in

fourth came Shaw, Welsh and Lawless.

The feature was to be fifteen laps with the lowest heat point’s scorers to the front. The grid began as Smith, Lawless, Welsh, Shaw, West, Hovey, Jenkins and Pitcher. After a horrid night Smith got a great start with Shaun Walsh the former state champion help-ing with the set up

through the night. Welsh stuck his car into second right from the first lap and it took until lap five for Pitcher (# 7 Seven Steel) to come through the pack into the lead. Welsh was still in second and Pitcher wasn’t getting too far out of sight at his top speed.

With five laps to go Pitcher’s bubble burst when he got a flat and Welsh (# 75 Donna’s Hair Design) took the lead. Al-though Hovey was chasing she really was-n’t getting closer and Jenkins couldn’t get by Hovey who was doing a great job her-self. When the chequered flag dropped Welsh was the victor, Hovey, Jenkins, Shaw, West, Smith and Lawless all finished behind.

It was a wonderful sight at the end of the race when the old stager didn’t want to take the chequer flag as he soaked in his victory doing around three extra laps be-fore we could bring him to a halt to give him the chequered flag. After an emotional week for all Victorians those at Rushworth had an injection of morale with a famous victory at 70 years old that will never be forgotten. Those there can say we wit-nessed the ole ‘Ricochet’ win at Rushy.

The next round of the Thunder Down Un-der series heads to Rolling Thunder Race-way on the 28th of February and Heartland Raceway Moama on the 14th of March be-fore heading to the Victorian Title at Nyora Speedbowl on March 21st.

The SDAV Club would like to thank their minor sponsors:Mega Auto PartsRibeau Interstate Transport CarrierTony Delmo Radiator ServiceBob Fisher AutomotiveMeehan’s Race Engines



DMT MediaDean Thompson

[email protected]

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RACESAFERACESAFE is Australia's largest specialised motorsport safety service and the only organisation providing a full range of racetrack emergency services.

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