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Missouri’s Brian
Brown driving for Tasmanian Robin
Dawkins finally nailed a $10,000 to
win show when he made his debut at
Rolling Thunder Raceway (RTR) last
night ahead of West Aussie Luch Monte
and back markers Daryn Pittman and
Troy Little.
Once again the big
Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, venue put on
a brilliant race despite some trying
track conditions. As with the December
17 Sprintcar feature this one too was
a cracker with Max Dumesny, Brown,
Phil March and Adrian Redpath all
taking the lead at various stages of
the 25 lap feature and keeping the
crowd totally enthralled.
“$10,000, yeah I
can’t beat that. I have to thank Robin
Dawkins, Rob Hart and all the boys
because in the last 20 laps I could
put the car wherever I wanted.” Stated
an elated Missouri native. “I passed
Max one time and he was setting a real
hard pace in lapped traffic, and I
kind of laid back and I knew we had a
car good enough to win and I didn’t
want to do anything stupid, and that’s
what happened, Max kinda got in a
little bit of trouble and we took
advantage of it. The car just kept
getting better and better and
hopefully we’re gonna keep winning
some races.”
“The last ten laps
the car came on pretty good, a few
cars dropped out in front of us but
that’s racing I suppose.” Was all that
the quietly spoken Monte had to say
about his terrific race.
“We weren’t bad.
Realistically we were a 6th
or 7th placed car but other
guys kept crashing out or running out
of fuel or whatever.” Pittman reasoned
about his 3rd place finish.
“I’ve got to thank Matt from Victory
Lane it was a good car we just needed
a few more laps, we didn’t need to
fall out of our first heat. 3rd
place in our first time out here,
we’ll take it.”
Dumesny and March
had started the journey off the front
row after some scintillating heat
racing each driver displaying their
love of the big tracks.
“I love big
tracks.” March said post race.
“Actually I love all race tracks but
it was hard in that second heat when I
lost the brakes after breaking a
calliper.”
Redpath initially
took the challenge up to Dumesny and
actually hit the lead before Dumesny
took it back again as the pair ran
side by side all over the racetrack.
March also was in the mix along with
Brown all four drivers having taking
the lead momentarily at some stage.
Sadly for Dumesny it all came unglued
for the champion when he was a bit
impatient in attempting to pass a
lapped car. Knowing that there were
cars all around trying to take the
lead he had to be quick and decisive
with lapped traffic. On this occasion
he got in too quick as he tried to
pass and actually spun his car
backwards into the slower car before
flipping over. Thankfully Dumesny was
okay and the car was reasonably good.
Brown led away at
the restart from March and Jason
Johnson. It wasn’t long however,
before both March and Johnson were in
trouble. Johnson’s attempted pass
under March saw contact and March
spin. Johnson was sent to the rear
along with March who had a flat left
front tyre. The top three at this
point were Brown, Redpath and the
legendary Jimmy Sills who was having a
good run to this point.
Sills unfortunately
caused the next stoppage when the car
stopped on track with driveline
problems. The order now was Brown,
Redpath, Allan Woods, Monte, Alan
Barlee, Pittman and Little.
In the final mad
dash to the finish a number of cars
started to run out of fuel but not so
Brown, Monte, Pittman, Little or
Johnson who’d charged back from the
rear of the field.
Final positions
went to Brown, Monte, Pittman, Little,
Johnson, Luke Dillon, Ian Thomsen,
Brett Milburn, Mark Grosvenor, Wayne
Milburn, Bruce Williams, Leith Ahlfors,
Redpath, Barlee, March, Woods, Tony
Moule, Sills, Paul Farrell, Gary
Bruce, Dumesny, Ian Lewis, Travis
Rilat and Chris Campbell.
The B-main was won
by Bruce, from Wayne Milburn,
Grosvenor and Farrell.
Heat wins were
shared amongst Dumesny (2), March,
Redpath, Barlee and Little.
Carnage
unfortunately was the order of the
feature in the AMCA nationals with
Mick Clark eventually taking his
second win in succession here ahead of
Chris Best, Adam Wallis and Ricky
Barrand. Along with the race victory
Calrk also won the Hooters Pro Cup
Challenge. As a reward Clark gets a
chance to compete against paying
drivers in a test of a race prepped
NASCAR on the Thunderdome and Adelaide
circuits with the ultimate prize being
a chance to race a Hooters cup car in
the USA. (Hooters cup is a feeder
category to the Bush and Nextel NASCAR
cup categories). Congratulations and
good luck Mick.
“I’ve always wanted
to have a steer in a NASCAR so I’m
looking forward to the opportunity.”
Stated Clark. “I’d also like to thank
Matt Lagoon for putting up this
magnificent prize.”
Making their
Rolling Thunder Raceway debut last
night was the Late Model sedans with a
conglomerate of east and west coast
cars contesting the King Of Thunder
event.
The West Australian
contingent dominated the heat racing
with Rob MacGregor winning two heats
while veteran Bert Vosbergen scored
the other heat win. Sadly the big cars
never got an opportunity to run the
feature event leaving MacGregor as
overall winner from Bert Vosbergen and
Kevin Bell.
The next meeting at
Rolling Thunder Raceway on February 18
will feature the winged warriors again
supported by the Mighty Midgets and
Marsh Modifieds.
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