Round Five of the East Coast Logistics Sprintcar Track Championship Series was at Archerfield Speedway on Saturday 27th November.
The format on the weekend was heat racing again – the same format as Toowoomba the previous week, where I learnt a lot. We started off with qualifying and I was in group 2B. I quick timed my actual group but the whole 2A group went quicker than me, which meant I qualified 5th in my group. In saying this our groups were the fastest overall so I ended up with 5th quickest overall.
The 2 groups combine for heat racing and the invert was 6 (meaning that 6th place goes from pole, 5th from 2nd, 1st from 6th and so on). Starting from 2nd in heat 1, I managed a good start and dived to the bottom in turn 1, securing the lead. Getting into a rhythm I won the heat by about 3 seconds in the end.
Heat 2 we started in our qualifying positions so I started from 5th place. I dropped back a spot at the start but regained it in a couple of laps and finished 5th. With the 2 heat races over the points get combined and I was 7th overall which meant I made the dash. It was a 6 lap race this time – I started from 7th and finished 5th which meant I started the feature from 5th place.
We went out for the feature and lined up. I got a good start and settled into 5th position, just taking my time and finding out the best way around the track. On lap 19 I came down across the start finish line and into turn 1 and 2 I got a great exit. Unfortunately on the exit of turn 2 the cars in front hit the brakes hard. I tried to steer around them but ended up hitting the car in front’s right rear tyre which sent me flipping into the air, coming to a stop on top of the pit gate!!!
I was stuck in the car as I was upside down. The race had stopped by this stage and they had to put chains on the front of my car and roll me off the fence and the roof of my car. Putting me back onto all 4 wheels I was then able to climb out as fortunately I didn’t get hurt in the accident! I would like to thank the safety team at Archerfield for all their efforts, their fast and professional response to get me off the fence in a timely manner – thank you very much.
That was the end of my feature race, though a DNF was not really the way I had seen it going as my car was feeling really good and getting faster the more the race went on. Thank you to my crew chief Michael Gee for the awesome set up for the feature – you nailed it.
Thanks to everyone that helped out on the night. I really appreciate everyone’s help, without it I wouldn’t be able to do what I do and what I love to do each week, so thank you!
Results Below:
Hot Laps time: N/A
Time Trials: 13.425 5th quickest in group 2
Heat 1: started 2nd finished 1st
Heat 2: started 5th finished 5th
Dash: started 7th finished 5th
Feature: started 5th finished DNF (crash lap 19)
Next race meet is at Toowoomba on the 4th December, hope to see you all there. A big thank you to my sponsors:
