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[NATIONALS] A champion and a monster crash
by Sean Henshelwood
pic: Nathan Wong
A champion and a monster crash dominate Morgan Park
Rnd#5 Shannons Nationals presented by Hi-Tec Oils
Morgan Park, QLD - 13 August, 2011
The 2011 Shannons Nationals presented by Hi-Tec Oils has crowned it's first champion for the season, with Ed Singleton amassing enough points to put the Radical Australia Cup title out of reach with one endurance race yet to run. Reigning champion Peter Opie (Radical Australia) needed to win everything for the weekend to have any kind of chance, but Singleton's consistency has put the result out of question.
"I'm stoked," Singleton (MPA Projects Group) admitted afterwards with a broad smile. "We knew what we needed to do, and the aim was to keep out of trouble in todays sprint races to ensure the result was out of question for tomorrow. Eight was the cutoff, if we finished worse than eighth we would have had to complete the 50-minute race tomorrow with complete caution, fortunately though that's it, so we can enjoy the race tomorrow and go on the attack."
With Opie taking maximum points from qualifying, a comfortable victory in two races, and the fastest lap in each, he couldn't do any more, whilst behind him, Singleton inherited third in race one, and finished a tough third in race two after a race long battle with Ollie Smith (WT Partnerships), Tony Palmer (Radical Events), Simon Haggarty and Byron Smith, the five cars running nose-to-tail for much of the 12-lapper without any real challenges for position.
"I was on the radio telling the boys to attack," Radical's high profile team-manager Garth Walden admitted afterwards. "Ed was never going to challenge, he needed the points, so he would have made room, but they're all too gentlemanly..!"
"I did think about it," Tony Palmer admitted afterwards, "then I elected not to.. Ed has done a great job, and it was great to have the five of us racing so closely together."
Earlier in the day, JK Racing Asia series [former Formula BMW Asia cars] regular Duvashen Padayachee battled strongly with Richard Bloomfield, and was on target for a podium finish before a final corner attempt to take second from Bloomfield failed. "I had to have a go," Padayachee - the only 'pro' ranked driver in the field admitted. He left half a gap, so I thought I'd try and fill it, but it didn't quite come off." Padayachee (Radical Australia) fell back to fourth at the flag, but a strong qualifying run in the opening session for the day will see him line up for tomorrow's 50-minute enduro on the front row alongside Peter Opie.
Chris Gilmour has returned to the winners list in the Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship for the first time in seven years after a dramatic 12-lap sprint race today.
It had been 86 races since Gilmour’s last outright race win at Mallala in September, 2004, but the Brisbane real estate agent was able to use his customarily good start to jump pole sitter John Magro on the run to turn one and take a lead he would never lose, brining his #17 Gilmour Racing/Racecarparts.com.au Dallara home for a triumphant victory.
The race began in dramatic fashion when Tasmanian youngster Josh Burdon rolled his Dallara F304 three times after contact with another vehicle as the cars ran into the quick turn one-two complex.
The Dallara was tipped onto its side and the 18-year-old from Hobart was left a passenger as it completed three complete revolutions in the air before landing upright, but heavily damaged. Burdon climbed from the car under his own power and emerged unscathed from the crash, though was clearly shaken by the dramatic accident.
“I just felt the hit as we all went into turn one and two and it went over,” Burdon explained. “It was over very quickly and the safety team and officials were on the scene really quickly to help me get out of the car and I have to thank them for being there before the car even stopped moving.
“I’m physically fine and will probably just be a bit sore tomorrow but it puts a big dent in our plans to carry on this year because this will kill what little budget we had.”
The race was held under safety car for six laps whilst the damaged car was removed from the outside of the first corner before Gilmour led them back to the green flag for the sprint to the finish.
Gilmour battled to hold the lead from Magro and Bryce Moore but as his tyres came up to temperature his race lead extended to eventually take the chequered flag unchallenged and break a winless streak that stretches back to 2004.
“My start was really good and that was enough to get into turn one and control the race from there. I felt I had good cold tyre pace and was able to get a bit of a gap over Magro on the restart and do enough to get the win," Gilmour said.
“It’s a great feeling and now we need to go on with it for the championship. Getting a win here was always a plan so it’s a great result and really closes things up in the points.
Magro was a solid second and, with Moore third, the championship now closes up dramatically with the top four drivers now split by just 15 points at the top of the standings.
Moore’s third place was his best race result since Darwin, the R-Tek driver now just one point behind Magro in the championship standings after his strong race result, despite having to deal with some oil on his rear tyres in the closing few laps of the race.
In the battle for the Forpark Australia F3 Scholarship, Steel Guiliana held off a concerted challenge from local Ben Gersekowski all race long to close the margin at the top of the class points table to just one solitary point ahead of tomorrow’s two races.
Fellow local hope Roman Krumins failed to finish after a highly competitive showing in Qualifying, after suffering light damage in the opening-turn incident.
Earlier in the day, John Magro took his second pole position of the season and continued his streak of starting every round this year from the front row with a blistering time in Qualifying.
Magro’s high 1:08-second lap stands as the fastest ever ‘official’ lap recorded at Morgan Park, the North Queenslander going on to set a new lap record in the first race as well.
Chris Gilmour qualified second and Bryce Moore third, with Guiliana topping Gersekowski in the battle for the Forpark Australia Scholarship.
2010 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia Morgan Park round winner Matt Kingsley made a successful comeback to the category after his big Mallala shunt forced him out of the most recent Eastern Creek round, by winning the opening race after qualifying on pole position earlier in the day
Kingsley (Action Tyres & More 996) led from the start of the race and immediately pulled a gap on his nearest rivals - Jeff Bobik (Creative Colour 997), Jon Trende (Boston Kennedy 997) and Roger Lago (Falcon Property Group 997) - with the leading four driving retaining their positions for the remainder of the race.
“The car’s a bit of a weapon,” said Kingsley. “I looked to try and get a bit of a gap at the start. I was able to do a couple of quick laps early and get a jump on the guys behind. From there, I was able to stabilise the car and look after the tyres, because we’ve still got 48 laps to go tomorrow. It’s going to be quite a long weekend on six tyres.
“I didn’t expect to win in my first race with this car. After I got pole I knew we had pace over one lap, but I didn’t know what it would be like over a stint. That was the first long run for the car; we had a couple of set-up issues we’ve got to address but, all in all, it was a very good result.”
Behind the leading quartet, season rookie John Modystach (Prosurv 997) scored his best results in the category. Modystach started eighth and moved into fifth on the opening lap, where he remained unchallenged to the finish.
“I didn’t expect to be getting these results so early in the season, especially after the first round,” said Modystach. “I’ve picked up a lot of techniques from the team and I'm very happy with my learning curve and having the ability to drive these cars properly."
Behind Modystach, Terry Knight (Strandwood Building Solutions 996) and John Goodacre (Gap Solutions 997) enjoyed a mid-race battle to finish sixth and seventh, respectively, with Brad Rankin (Mdev Property Group 997), John Morriss (Mission Foods/Motorsport Leasing 997) and Phil Morriss (Morriss Racing) filling the remaining top-10 positions.
The best battle of the race occurred in the closing laps with Dean Koutsoumidis (Equit-One 996), Indiran Padayachee (Rentcorp 996) and Francis Chin (Wimobilize-Valais 997) battling for 15th position. Koutsoumidis crossed the chequered flag in 15th, ahead of Padayachee and Chin.
Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia will hold Race 2 tomorrow morning, with the 36-lap Race 3 in the afternoon to decide the winner of the Jim Richards Endurance Trophy.
The Kerrick Sports Sedan Series saw Tony Ricciardello obliterate the qualifying lap record set by Darren Hossack 12 months ago, the six-time champion hustling his Red Rooster Alfa Romeo GTV/Chev around the Morgan Park layout with an impressive 1:12.4304 lap, more than a second faster than Hossack and on untried Dunlop rubber.
"Darren [Hossack] tried them at Eastern Creek, and they looked pretty good," Ricciardello admitted. "Dunlop were keen for us to try them here. They're a little bigger in diameter which has changed the characteristics of the car a little, but they're quick."
Quick was the understatement of the day, with Scott Butler (Menai Blinds/Steve's Toyshop Camaro Chev) the Alfa's strongest challenger, although sadly, his quick qualifying lap (1:16.2055) was closely followed by a driveline failure at the end of the main straight, causing serious damage to the gear selector, which put him out of Q2 to allow him to effect repairs. Ricciardello too elected to sit out Q2 after initially planning to run his 'green' Michelins, but in the end, he decided against it and will wait until the three sprint races tomorrow to make a decision on which way he'll go..
The Swift Racing Series continued to provide the kind of close door-banging action we've come to love with the Nationals, and it continues to be a surprise as to why the fields aren't growing with each round. This time round it was former V8 Ute regular Steve 'Robbo' Robinson who joined the hungry pack for the Morgan park round, and despite his significant experience behind the wheel of a production car, even he was surprised by how nimble the little Swift was, and how hard he had to work to extract a lap time.
In the end, despite a tight battle between series regulars Allan Jarvis (Achilles) and Morgan Haber (Haber Excavations), it was 17-year old Haber who prevailed, taking the top spot (1:36.1981), three tenths clear of Allan Jarvis, and half a second clear of Robinson.
“It’s an excellent feeling to finally be on pole position and has given me plenty of confidence ahead of race one," he said.
Cars rolled out onto the circuit as the sun started to set for their opening race of the round, and it was on from the drop of the flag, Haber and Allan Jarvis battling to keep Robinson at bay before the latter ran off deep into turn two early, dropping him to rear of field. That left Haber and Jarvis to swap positions up front, as behind them Brooke Leech battled with Rob Jarvis, and Robinson battled with former Group C Touring Car star Peter McLeod. At flag-fall it was Jarvis who would take the win, ahead of Haber, with Brooke Leech coming through for her maiden series podium.
The TMR juggernaut continued in the Australian Manufacturers Championship with team-mates Stuart Kostera and Inky Tulloch taking a solid victory in the opening one-hour enduro, leading an all EVO podium, with Dylan Thomas (CXC Global EVO 9) second, and production car stalwart Jim Pollicina (Poll Performance EVO 9RS) third.
The Allan Heaphy run TMR crew was never seriously challenged, losing the lead for just two laps to Pollicina during the pit stop rotations, but were soon back in front and in control. Sadly for Mazda's Jake Camilleri, the expected challenge from the 2010 event sensation never came, although he did manage to take fourth as the last of the cars on the lead lap, ahead of Peter O'Donnell's GWS Personel BMW 335.
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