[V8TC] Coming of age at Wakefield

by Sean Henshelwood



It was a sight to behold. Twenty Kumho Tyres supported V8 Touring Cars sitting on the grid for the opening qualifier for round one of the 2011 Shannons Nationals at Wakefield Park. It had taken three seasons, but finally the job was done.

V8 Touring Cars come of age at Wakefield Park
2011 Shannons Nationals - Kumho Tyres V8 Touring Cars
Wakefield Park, April 1-3

It was a sight to behold. Twenty Kumho Tyres supported V8 Touring Cars sitting on the grid for the opening qualifier for round one of the 2011 Shannons Nationals at Wakefield Park. It had taken three seasons, but finally the job was done.

“We always believed in the product,” Shannons Nationals Series Director Rob Curkpatrick admitted, “..that’s why we stuck with it, although with just four cars on the grid for the season opener last year, you couldn’t have predicted this, it’s fantastic – from the smallest to the biggest field in just 12 months!”

The beauty of the depth of competitors on the grid was that for many, they’d never driven a V8 Touring Car previously, and of those, some were new to motor racing full stop.

“I’ve always wanted to drive one,” Image Racing’s Michael Hector grinned, “and now I can afford to. I don’t know what the weekend will bring, but my plan is to keep out of everybody’s way and try and get my laptimes down to within five seconds of Terry [Wyhoon]. I can’t wait to get out there!”

Friday’s practice sessions really didn’t provide any clear indication of what to expect for the weekend, with a number of cars circulating without their transponders, so no times were recorded for the likes of Wyhoon and the Garioch brothers. One driver MIA was reigning champion Tony Evangelou who was unable to make the session due to work commitments, his car was there though fresh from some ‘love’ by renowned engine guru Mike Exell and some engine parts from Ford Performance Racing.

The on-track action though was pretty lively, with the early ‘timed’ pace-setter being John Vergotis in the ex-FTR Falcon, complete with new Dick Johnson Racing engine, and Johnny showed that it wasn’t just the ‘main game’ that benefitted from DJR’s technical prowess, something a number of drivers would attest to over the course of the weekend.. “That thing is a jet in a straight line…”

With so many new cars on track for practice, it was nice to see that there weren’t too many failures, although both Garioch cars suffered from niggling issues that in the end only cost them a session. “We only finished the cars on Thursday,” crew-chief José Fernandez admitted. “Nathan’s car suffered from a broken weld which dropped the catch tank for the dry sump and allowed some oil spillage, but the car is fine, and Justin’s car had a linkage issue with the shifter, so we’ fixed that pretty easily as well.”

The full quota of 20 entries lined up for qualifying on Saturday morning, although that quickly became 19 after Sean Fardell was forced to put his VX Commodore back in the trailer. “We discovered a leaking front engine seal yesterday, and haven’t been able to do anything about it,” he admitted. “The engine had a complete freshen in the last few weeks, so we don’t want to risk doing any serious damage, so we’ll take it away and work on Mallala.”

Qualifying was somewhat predictable, with ‘veterans’ Wyhoon, Evangelou and Loadsman trading times towards the top of the field, Wyhoon setting the early benchmark of 1:00.3961 before a final minute lunge by Loadsman saw a Commodore on pole, his best just four one hundredths of a second faster (1:00.3524).

“It was a good clean lap,” Loadsman admitted. “I wasn’t sure I could catch Terry, but after he pulled in I thought I’d have a good dig and we just got him.”

“I pulled in early because I was baulked [on a hot lap],” Wyhoon admitted. “I looked at the time and thought we may just have pole with it, but when Scott did his time there was no time left to respond.”

Wyhoon regained the advantage though in the point-scoring ‘Time Attack’ (which gives the top ten contenders additional series points but doesn’t change the qualifying positions for the start of race one) after Loadsman put a couple of wheels off the track on the back straight, dropping him back to seventh.

Jim Pollicina was having an outstanding debut in his ex-Jason Richards Tasman built VY Commodore, the former Production Car competitor second at the close of the Time Attack session, just nine one hundredths in arrears of Wyhoon.

“That was fantastic, I really enjoyed it,” Jim admitted with a smile afterwards.

After a strong run in qualifying, Aaron Tebb was forced to sit the session out with a broken flywheel, the team working hard to ensure he made the afternoon’s opening 15-lapper. For the young Commodore pilot, a run inside the top ten was just reward after a tough season in 2010.

“My biggest problem was confidence,” he admitted. “Last year I had a real issue with the rears locking on the car, which made it difficult to predict, so over the off-season we went right through the braking system and it looks like we’ve sorted it. That’s all it takes, having the confidence that you can attack and arrive at a corner carrying good road speed and knowing you’re not going to throw yourself off the track under heavy braking.”

Loadsman led the field away for the opening 15-lapper, but was quickly taken by Wyhoon before the close of the opening lap. Wyhoon then stuck his head down and charged, re-setting the lap record for the category on three separate occasions.

“My crew kept telling to back off and conserve, but the car became easier to drive and the times came,” he said.

Behind him Evangelou had jumped into third off the start and followed Wyhoon through on Loadsman but almost immediately he pulled to the side of the circuit after a fuel relay cut out, stalling the pack behind him in the process, which allowed Wyhoon all the break he needed.

Evangelou quickly diagnosed the drama and continued, losing almost an entire lap in the process.

Behind Loadsman Smerdon, Pollicina and Justin Garioch battled over third place, with the young former Saloon Car pilot working his way past his more experienced counterparts to take third on debut. “I was pretty nervous before the race started, and even more so when I was battling with Chris Smerdon, but I got used to it and just pressed on with the job,” Justin admitted matter-of-factly post race.

Behind fifth placed Pollicina, Voight steered his ex-GRM VY home ahead of John Vergotis whilst the younger of the Garioch brothers, Nathan, improved to eighth from his P13 starting position.

Chris Delfsma ran strong early before a fuel pressure issue dropped him down the order, and Mark Shepherd suffered from clutch issues off the start and had to fight his way through the field to finish tenth behind Matt Hansen in the ex-HRT VY Commodore.

Terry Wyhoon’s dream run in his ‘new’ ex-Ingall SBR BA Falcon came to an almost immediate stop off the start of race two, the multiple Touring Car race winner creeping forward on the grid after selecting gear just prior to the start. He stopped it immediately, and missed the start, but that was all it would take.

“I put the car in gear when I thought the five seconds was signalled, and it crept forward a foot,” he shrugged afterwards. “It was my fault, the new car is actually fitted with a ‘handbrake’ and it would have been useful, but I didn’t use it.” Whilst he ran away with the win, having countered Scott Loadsman’s lightning start, Wyhoon was handed a 15 second penalty post-race, dropping him back to fifth overall.

That handed Loadsman the win, with reigning champ Evangelou second and Chris Smerdon hanging on to third. Fourth, and one of the standouts for the round was Justin Garioch, the youngster quickly coming to terms with his BA Falcon to turn laps within four tenths of Wyhoon’s fastest.

“That was brilliant,” he grinned afterwards. “Running around with Chris Smerdon was almost surreal. I just settled into a rhythm and the rest just came. I have to work on my starts though, they’re costing me.”

Whilst he may have inherited the race win second time around, Loadsman threw it all away at the start of the final 15-lapper, stalling on the grid as the field streamed through off the start. “I just stuffed it up,” he explained later.

That allowed Evangelou through to the lead with Smerdon in hot pursuit. Fortunately Loadsman was able to restart and rejoin the field, but he had his work cut out for him, having dropped back as far as 15th.

Up front Wyhoon was on a charge through from fifth and battling John Vergotis who had made a blistering start to be third at the close of the opening lap.

On lap four though the inevitable happened and after two clean uneventful races, the first big accident of the series took place on the infield ‘fish-hook’ after Steven Voight clipped the rear of Vergotis, spinning him around into the path of the ever-improving Aaron Tebb who had nowhere to go after being hit from behind in the ensuing melee.

The impact did serious damage to the once-immaculate Vergotis Falcon, and winded Tebb, who took some time to catch his breath and alight from the car. Both cars were out which was frustration for them and for Pollicina and Stuart Inwood, who in his debut Touring Car event (ex-Wyhoon AU) had also found himself involved in the incident. Both Pollicina and Inwood were fortunately able to carry on.

The big ‘winner’ out of all of this was Loadsman, who had been creeping up the order and by now was holding down eighth place, a position he improved to third by chequered flag time after Wyhoon came to grief with Garioch in the closing laps after a late-braking move into the final corner went awry.

Wyhoon recovered for eighth (and third in the event), whilst an almost certain maiden podium by Justin Garioch was scuttled by the move, although both he and brother Nathan proved more than capable of matching the veterans on debut.

Steven Voight held on for fourth and was almost as saddened by the mid-race incident as Vergotis. Matt Hansen recovered for fifth on his debut with the ex-Skaife Commodore, and admitted that he and his team had a bit of work to do. “It’s different to the old DJR AU, and whilst I have one of the guys that worked on the car at Greg Murphy Racing for Geoff Emery (the car’s previous owner) here today, he hasn’t seen the Kumho Tyres before, and nore has my new data engineer, so we’re just working ourselves up to speed, but fifth is a good result for the final race.”

Behind Hansen was Nathan Garioch who turned in a solid run for sixth and Michael Bartcsh who, like Vergotis, showed there’s still plenty of life yet in the old AU.

The result cemented Loadsmans victory for the round, with Smerdon classified second and race one winner Wyhoon third, just a single point clear of Evangelou.

“Lucky, I can’t believe it, that never happens to me,” Loadsman grinned afterwards. “You couldn’t have expected the day to pan out like that. This was Terry’s weekend, he was fast, none of us could touch him, and if he hadn’t had those little dramas [in the end], we would have been looking at a very different result.”

“I’m very happy with that,” Chris Smerdon admitted. “Wakefield Park isn’t one of my favourite tracks, and I struggled to get the setup sorted early, but with some help from SBR [Stone Brothers Racing] and later in the weekend from Terry’s [Wyhoon] engineers, I found the half second I was looking for.”

“I stuffed that last race up, plain and simple,” Terry Wyhoon admitted with frustration. “I was catching Chris [Smerdon] and Justin, and I probably went in deeper than I should have and just locked the rears. I’m sorry I took Justin with me because he was having a ripper run, but when you’re starting to get fields of this size, these things will happen more often, but all up a great weekend.”

Round #2 of the V8 Touring Car Series will, be run at Mallala on May 14-15. For more information on the Kumho Tyres V8 Touring Car Series, please visit their website; http://www.v8touringcars.com.au

V8 Touring Cars is proudly supported by Kumho Tyres (www.kumho.com.au).

2011 – Kumho Tyres V8 Touring Cars
Rnd#1, Wakefield Park (Shannons Nationals) – April 1-3

Qualifying
1. Scott Loadsman – Beautiful Tiles VY Commodore (1:00.3524)
2. Terry Wyhoon – Lubrimaxx BA Falcon (1:00.3961)
3. Justin Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon (1:00.4118)
4. Jim Pollicina – Poll Performance VY Commodore (1:00.5267)
5. Tony Evangelou – ANT Racing BA Falcon (1:00.5935)
6. Chris Smerdon – Smerdon Racing BA Falcon (1:00.9645)
7. Mark Shepherd – Warby Lodge BA Falcon (1:01.0742)
8. John Vergotis – JCV Automotive AU Falcon (1:01.0943)
9. Steven Voight – Voight Contracting VY Commodore (1:01.1532)
10. Aaron Tebb – Macarthur Truckserve VY Commodore (1:01.2123)
11. Matthew Hansen – Aust. Custom Moulders VY Commodore (1:01.2173)
12. Chris Delfsma – Century 21 Hazelbrook AU Falcon (1:01.3132)
13. Nathan Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon (1:01.3329)
14. Michael Bartsch – Cavalier Homes Barossa AU Falcon (1:01.6092)
15. Sean Fardell – Mr HDT Race Cars/Engines VX Commodore (1:02.6163)
16. Steve Ingwersen – Steve Ingwersen Painting VT Commodore (1:02.9658)
17. Michael Hector – Carrington Equip. Group BA Falcon (1:03.5203)
18. Derrick Hocking – VY Commodore (1:04.5078)
19. Stuart Inwood – AU Falcon (1:05.0154)
20. Sean Fennell – VX Commodore (NTR)

Time Attack
1. Terry Wyhoon – Lubrimaxx BA Falcon (1:01.0334)
2. Jim Pollicina – Poll Performance VY Commodore (1:01.1240)
3. Tony Evangelou – ANT Racing BA Falcon (1:01.1808)
4. Justin Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon (1:01.2109)
5. Steven Voight – Voight Contracting VY Commodore (1:01.4263)
6. Chris Smerdon – Smerdon Racing BA Falcon (1:01.7217)
7. Scott Loadsman – Beautiful Tiles VY Commodore (1:02.0838)
8. Mark Shepherd – Warby Lodge BA Falcon (1:02.3780)
9. John Vergotis – JCV Automotive AU Falcon (1:02.9266)
10. Aaron Tebb – Macarthur Truckserve VY Commodore (DNS)

Race#1 (15-laps)
1. Terry Wyhoon – Lubrimaxx BA Falcon
2. Scott Loadsman – Beautiful Tiles VY Commodore
3. Justin Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
4. Chris Smerdon – Smerdon Racing BA Falcon
5. Jim Pollicina – Poll Performance VY Commodore
6. Steven Voight – Voight Contracting VY Commodore
7. John Vergotis – JCV Automotive AU Falcon
8. Nathan Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
9. Matthew Hansen – Aust. Custom Moulders VY Commodore
10. Mark Shepherd – Warby Lodge BA Falcon
11. Michael Bartsch – Cavalier Homes Barossa AU Falcon
12. Stuart Inwood – AU Falcon
13. Chris Delfsma – Century 21 Hazelbrook AU Falcon
14. Steve Ingwersen – Steve Ingwersen Painting VT Commodore
15. Derrick Hocking – VY Commodore
16. Sean Fardell – Mr HDT Race Cars/Engines VX Commodore
17. Tony Evangelou – ANT Racing BA Falcon
18. Michael Hector – Carrington Equip. Group BA Falcon (14-laps)
19. Aaron Tebb – Macarthur Truckserve VY Commodore (12-laps)

Fastest lap: Terry Wyhoon (1:00.3584) – lap 14

Race#2 (15-laps)
1. Scott Loadsman – Beautiful Tiles VY Commodore
2. Tony Evangelou – ANT Racing BA Falcon
3. Chris Smerdon – Smerdon Racing BA Falcon
4. Justin Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
5. Terry Wyhoon – Lubrimaxx BA Falcon
6. John Vergotis – JCV Automotive AU Falcon
7. Steven Voight – Voight Contracting VY Commodore
8. Aaron Tebb – Macarthur Truckserve VY Commodore
9. Jim Pollicina – Poll Performance VY Commodore
10. Stuart Inwood – AU Falcon
11. Michael Bartsch – Cavalier Homes Barossa AU Falcon
12. Mark Shepherd – Warby Lodge BA Falcon
13. Matthew Hansen – Aust. Custom Moulders VY Commodore
14. Nathan Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
15. Chris Delfsma – Century 21 Hazelbrook AU Falcon
16. Steve Ingwersen – Steve Ingwersen Painting VT Commodore
17. Michael Hector – Carrington Equip. Group BA Falcon
18. Sean Fardell – Mr HDT Race Cars/Engines VX Commodore (14-laps)
19. Derrick Hocking – VY Commodore  (14-laps)

Fastest lap: Terry Wyhoon (1:00.3279) – lap 7 (new lap record)

Race#3 (15-laps)
1. Tony Evangelou – ANT Racing BA Falcon
2. Chris Smerdon – Smerdon Racing BA Falcon
3. Scott Loadsman – Beautiful Tiles VY Commodore
4. Steven Voight – Voight Contracting VY Commodore
5. Matthew Hansen – Aust. Custom Moulders VY Commodore
6. Nathan Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
7. Michael Bartsch – Cavalier Homes Barossa AU Falcon
8. Terry Wyhoon – Lubrimaxx BA Falcon
9. Chris Delfsma – Century 21 Hazelbrook AU Falcon
10. Stuart Inwood – AU Falcon
11. Justin Garioch – Valley Longwall BA Falcon
12. Derrick Hocking – VY Commodore
13. Steve Ingwersen – Steve Ingwersen Painting VT Commodore
14. Sean Fardell – Mr HDT Race Cars/Engines VX Commodore
15. Mark Shepherd – Warby Lodge BA Falcon
16. Michael Hector – Carrington Equip. Group BA Falcon
17. Jim Pollicina – Poll Performance VY Commodore (14-laps)
DNF. John Vergotis – JCV Automotive AU Falcon (3-laps)
DNF. Aaron Tebb – Macarthur Truckserve VY Commodore (3-laps)

Fastest lap: Terry Wyhoon (1:00.4912) – lap 11

Championship points (after round one of five);
1. Scott Loadsman - 113
2. Chris Smerdon - 98
3. Terry Wyhoon - 88
4. Tony Evangelou - 87
5. Justin Garioch - 75
6. Steven Voight - 70
7. Jim Pollicina - 49
8. Matt Hansen - 44
9. Nathan Garioch - 42
10. John Vergotis - 39
11. Michael Bartsch - 37
12. Stuart Inwood - 31
13. Mark Shepherd - 28
14. Chris Delfsma – 27
15. Steve Ingwersen – 20
16. Aaron Tebb – 17
17. Derrick Hocking – 17
18. Sean Fardell – 15
19. Michael Hector – 12
20. Shaun Fennell - 0

2011 Kumho Tyres V8 Touring Cars – calendar
Rnd#1 – Wakefield Park, NSW (April 2-3)
Rnd#2 – Mallala, SA (May 14-15)
Rnd#3 – Eastern Creek, NSW (July 16-17)
Rnd#4 – Sandown, VIC (September 10-11)
Rnd#5 – Phillip Island, VIC (November 5-6)


www.v8touringcars.com.au



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