Lightning Sprints SA

The V6 Sprints South Australian Title held at Murray Bridge Speedway went as expected with Nick Hall becoming the V6 Sprints South Australian Champion. Hall driving the Warner Forklift S8 Gambler qualified in pole position for the 25 lap feature. Hall unchallenged by the 16 car field enjoyed cruising to victory with a faultless performance, with Ben Hall placing 2nd and Neil Toye 3rd.

Heat 1

Michael Buxallen started on the pole for the first heat race with Nick Hall along side, Hall got the early lead with Mark brown in the S25 car wasting no time in making a challenge for second place, completing the move was out after Hall who was running away with the race. ‘Leethal’ Lee Payne in S28 battled with Scott Bobstchinski V20 for 4th early only to be passed by Kate Wiese late in the race, Race win going to S8 Nick Hall with S25 Mark Brown 2nd and S19 driven by Michael Buxallen finishing 3rd with a good drive.

Heat 2

Brendan Quinn was off pole in Heat 2 with John McKenzie beside him. Quinn in the S14 car grabbed the lead and never looked back. While Ben Hall driving his Black Bandit S71 into 2nd place left Mackenzie S16 and Kelvin Burns S7 battling for third. An exciting three car scrap was happening at the back of the pack between Neil Toye S10, Chris James in S12 and S44 Chad Allman. At the finish it was S14 Brendan Quinn ahead of S71 Ben Hall, Kelvin Burns S7 moving forward to finish 3rd.

Heat 3

On the front row for the 3rd heat Kelvin Burns driving the Hall Mechanical S7 and next to him Chad Allman in the S44 car, Burns hit the lead and the S18 Daryl Knuckey followed him into second place while S8 Nick Hall wasting no time moving past S9 Kate Wiese. Allman immediately under fire from S25 Mark Brown, Brown pasted Allman and as that happened; Nick “The Hurricane” Hall passed both cars and set out after the S18 car of Daryl Knuckey. Burns drove a great race taking a comfortable win over Daryl Knuckey and coming from the back of the pack another good drive with Nick Hall 3rd.

Heat 4

Lee (Leethal) Payne in S28 was head of the ‘Pack’ with Graham “Bones” Knuckey S78 along side, then Leethal jumped to the lead leaving Knuckey behind. Ben Hall moved passed Scott Bobstchinski in V20 with S10 of Neil Toye charging to 3rd place. The two lead cars were locked in a ding dong battle for the race win, but unfortunately Leethal Lee would suffer with fuel problems and forced to retire from this race leaving Graham Knuckey to take the win, while Ben Hall chased hard to gain the 2nd place ahead of S10 Neil Toye placing 3rd.

Heat 5

The start of ‘Heat 5’ – Turn 1; Lee Payne rolled, bringing on the caution lights which put him out of the race. On the restart Neil Toye in S10 moved to the lead, which was short lived as Nick Hall was hot on his trail. Scott Bobstchinski tried to stay with Graham Knuckey in S78 as he moved passed Neil Toye. Mark Brown moved up to 4th making contact in turn 3 with V20 Scott Bobstchinski sending him fence bound. Bobstchinski corrected the S&E Performance Parts car and went full throttle to finish the race. At the finish the clear winner was S8 Nick Hall on a roll with another great drive S78 Graham Knuckey 2nd and Neil Toye S10 in 3rd.

Heat 6

Kate Wiese started from pole with Daryl Knuckey along side. As the flag dropped so did Kate’s foot in her S9 green machine to take the lead, followed by Brendan Quinn in S14 moving into 2nd briefly before Knuckey passed him taking the 2nd spot. Ben Hall in S71 charged pass Quinn into 3rd (putting Quinn into 4th), & Knuckey still holding 2nd. John Mackenzie spun bringing on the caution lights. On the restart Kate stood on the gas and broke away to lead by half the straight in front of her challengers & charged past the lapped car of Wayne Goodwin S36. Ben Hall in fast pursuit passed Knuckey to take 2nd position. Then Chad Allman spun again bringing on the caution lights once more. At the restart Wayne Goodwin S36 was to go between S9 of Wiese and S71 of Hall but chose to not take the position due to being an inexperienced rookie. Wiese continued to head the pack with Hall close behind. Coming out of turn 2 contact was made between the two cars sending Kate for a wild ride and then being collected by Brendan Quinn who had no place to go, Kate became air born. Racing resumed with Ben Hall sent rear of field for his part in the accident. Eventual race winners S18 Daryl Knuckey with S44 Chad Allman 2nd and S71 Ben Hall charged back to finish 3rd.

A Main

At the Start of the feature cars were making plenty of contact on the second row, when the green light came on Nick Hall hit the lead but that was short lived as Chad Allman spun to bring on the caution. At the restart there was still plenty of contact going on before the green light had even come on, then it was Nick Hall straight to the front once again. Darryl Knuckey made contact with Graham Knuckey coming out of turn 2 & as a result of the contact Darryl Knuckey’s right side front tyre went down. Heading into the next turn Knuckey lost steering on the red rocket sending him fence bound and many other cars going to great lengths to avoid. Kelvin Burns S7 was lucky to have missed Knuckey S18, while S16 Mackenzie slowed to avoid it which then put him in the path of Lee Payne S28 who drove over the front of Mackenzie’s car cutting down Lee’s right rear tyre bringing on the caution light.

On the next full restart, cars were three wide down the front straight, Mark Brown S25 made contact with Graham Knuckey S78 which resulted in a broken steering rod and another caution period.

After having trouble getting the first lap on the board, Nick Hall took the lead and drove away to healthy gap over Ben Hall and Neil Toye. Scott Bobstchinski V20 and Michael Buxallen S19 were battling it out swapping positions on a number of occasions before Bobstchinski moved up the track and Buxallen made the move for position down the back shoot on the inside, but got out of shape & the V20 had to hit the anchors to avoid S19, almost stalling the car, Bobstchinski regained control and got back in the chase. Mackenzie S16 made a pass on S19 Buxallen when he drifted wide in turn 1-2; Chad Allman spun in turn 2 which had the caution lights on yet again. When the race resumed so did Nick Hall domination when he gapped the field, leaving Ben Hall in fast pursuit of his cousin’s dominant performance. Mark Brown S25 loosing power pulled infield after having a battle for third with S10 Neil Toye. The S19 of Michael Buxallen had a good run till late in the race when his car slowed & pulled to the infield. Nick Hall greeted the Chequer Flag in comfortable style ahead of Ben Hall and Neil Toye (who was having a good first outing in the ex Mark Harrington car) finished 3rd and Scott Bobstchinski 4th after Mackenzie was put back one position.

GRIZZLE

About the Track & the Event…

First of all let me say this, Saturday nights running of the S.A. V6 Sprint Title was the most poorly supported, mismanaged event I’ve ever seen in this class & certainly no thanks to Murray Bridges poor handling of the event.

THE TRACK;

CARS NOT WEIGHED Murray Bridge had not setup the V6 Sprint’s Scales – What A Joke!
RACE COMPETITORS LET DOWN by an extremely bad & inconsistent job by race stewards who allowed a late nominated car to start in the field instead of the rear of the heat races and the amount of undisciplined driving that I saw with out any stern words of warning from race control.
HIGH CASUALTY OF DAMAGED CARS caused by the poorly managed track and the mismanagement by a Race Steward whose words obviously don’t mean a great deal at the Drivers Brief if doesn’t follow through to police the class on the track. To keep allowing the contact from one competitor to continue without warning is a dereliction of race control duty.
NO RESTART PENALTIES became obvious as one car was allowed to restart on every caution light he caused (taking up valuable race time) when he should have been parked infield after at least the 3rd restart. Not only that the Race Steward also allowed a car to pass another before the witch’s hat on a restart, Ah! HELLO Race Control what is going on in the box up there??
NO MEDALLIONS ORGANIZED FOR THE PRESENTATION? What is going on? It is not good enough to have this kind of lack of support for this class and nor should we support a track that treat the class in the way it was dealt with the Saturday night.

THE DRIVERS; Well Guy’s & Gal’s, we’ve got to do it better than Saturday nights performance. We had cars suffering more damage than we can win in prize money. The way some drivers performed on Saturday night was reckless and unnecessary. We’re not racing for thousands of dollars but we sure tore up some gear. Some drivers need to take a good look at themselves and put things in perspective also learn some Track & Pit manners.

The Kate Wiese incident was unfortunate many people we angered by the crash and there were some harsh words spoken in regards as to how it happened. This will be talked about for some time with many having there own view on events that unfolded. Kate suffered a broken bone in her hand from the crash. It was disappointing to see the driver in question did not apologise for the contact or check if Kate was okay. Another below par thing to arise from this was when the car in question returned to the Pits a verbal spray was given to the driver which lead to a family member getting physical with the person giving the spray which required them to be separated. How this can be let get so out of hand has got me stumped?!?

GOSSIP

Mark Henry is close to finishing his car and should see him compete in round 5 of the V6 Sprint Challenge Series at Mildura
Sam Chapman might have his car ready for some meetings late in the season, rumours of another car not to far off completion may be ready for the last couple of rounds of the series
Mark Harrington – Injury Update; His recovery is on track with some progress being made to his comfort level. We wish him well.
Lost and Found; Lost Michael Buxallen was found running well in the State Title. Well done Buxy you nearly got there. Also Neil Toye having a dramatic change of luck to finish 3rd in the State Title.

Well Race Fans this is a wrap…

Yours CAM GRIND signing off for TRAK YAK

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