Straight after racing at Mount Gambier we headed to Victoria for the Warrnambool Classic – held at Premier Speedway from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd January.
A bit of background on the Classic from Tim:
The Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic, held in January each year, is the largest event of its type in the world and the most prestigious race to win in Australia. I was told by many people that American Sprintcar drivers come over to race at Warrnambool as its well known worldwide and so many of them really want to win.
The race goes over 3 days with normally about 120 cars entered – this year there were 82. They have 2 groups for qualifying, 1 group with a race on the Friday and the other on the Saturday, followed by the top drivers making it through to the main day on Sunday. Your qualifying day consists of time trials, heat race 1 (Heads up), heat 2 (8 invert), then C Main, B Main and A Main with the A Main paying 10k to win. All of these races are earning you points for the Sunday. Then if you come back on the Sunday there’s 1 heat race (8 invert) and then into the Main. Out of the 24 cars that make the A Main each group has 12 spots to fill, so you only race the other group if you make the A Main on the Sunday.
So having said all that Ryan really wanted to make the A Main on the Sunday (a really big ask). He didn’t make it but made the A Main on his qualifying night, which we were told was amazing for a first timer, let alone a kid with only 25 shows under his belt at this point in time.
Warrnambool is another new track for me – its superfast, the facility is amazing and the crowds are the biggest I have seen so far in my racing career.
I was the last car to time trial, not ideal as the track is known to go slick and get slower the more cars that go around it. I went out for my 2 laps, sat the car mid track and got my time. The car felt a bit slow as it wouldn’t get off the corners or rev too well, but not bad for my first time here. My crew chief Michael, my Dad Tim and I spoke about the car and decided to change the gears in the diff as they were too low and also tighten the car up a bit more.
Going out for Heat 1 starting from 6th due to my time trial position, I made a good start and after a few laps made up 2 spots but then on the exit of turn 4 I slid the car up too far and hit the wall which caused the right rear tyre to go flat. As I know how important the points are for the Classic I sent it to the pole line and continued around the bottom to ensure I finished the race to gather some points.
Heat 2 saw me start from 2nd as they inverted the grid. I had a great start but the car on pole smoked the tyres and didn’t really move so they put the yellows on and we had to do a restart. My second start wasn’t as good and I had to settle into second position, but knowing I was faster than him I sat there for a few laps waiting for a good safe spot to pass. On the exit of turn 2 I managed a clean and fast pass and drove away. It was awesome to be able to win a heat at the Classic and get good clean traffic free laps in so I could get a proper look at the track at full speed. That win scored me enough points to make the last spot in the A main, which I was really happy about (I thought it would have been the B main for sure given my first heat.)
The A Main for me was about getting all 30 laps completed to gain track time and more experience with racing a Sprintcar but unfortunately that wasn’t to be. I started in 20th and got into the race, running mid to bottom track and finding my lines were pretty fast – I was passing cars and moving forward quite nicely. On lap 19 I came out of turn 4 and headed down the main straight following a car getting ready to take overtake him into turn 1. On exit I got a really good drive and he didn’t, we both floated up towards the wall but I had nowhere to go and rode over his right rear. This turned me right, sending me into the fence and I flipped down the main straight. I landed on my wheels crushing my top and front wing and bending the front end and some torsion arms – nothing major really so I was lucky!
That ended my A Main feature race on the Saturday night – to take some positives out of it I got 19 laps in out of 30 and when I crashed I was the second fastest car on the track. That’s racing, though it was really good to know that I had the pace to run with them all, I just need better track positioning and really must get better points to be further up the front.
The car had to be carried back to the transporter where we got straight into it, stripping the bent stuff off and getting the car ready for Sunday.
Saturday Night Results Below:
Hot Laps time: 11.198
Time Trials: 11.378 13th
Heat 1: started 6th finished 9th
Heat 2: started 2nd finished 1st
Dash: N/A
B-Main: N/A
A-Main/Feature: started 20th finished DNF
We had to get to the track early on Sunday to finish repairing the car from my rollover in the A main on Saturday night, going over the entire car cleaning and checking it completely. A massive thanks to Michael Gee and Dad for all their work on it, they did an awesome job. We got the car all ready, actually finishing it earlier than we initially thought, so we had time to shoot back to the motel and have a shower and clean up before racing started.
The first heat was inverted so I didn’t have great points and started from 3rd. It was hammer down fast and was really hard to overtake because everyone was just so fast. I just held my position as there wasn’t really much more I could do.
With all my points combined from all previous races and time trials I made the B Main starting from 8th. I thought that was pretty good and given my speed the night before in the A Main I was going to give it a red hot go and try and make the top 4 (as the top 4 transfer through to A Main).
I advanced to 7th in the first 2 laps and whilst going for 6th I slipped up the back of another car but saved it this time.
However I bent the front right torsion bar and front beam (folding the right wheel back towards me) which took all my steering away. From there I was fighting the car for the rest for the race ending up 10th – not where I wanted to end my Classic Debut but all in all I had a great first Classic experience. I will be better equipped for it next year and can’t wait to go back down there to race again.
Sunday Night Results Below:
Heat 1: started 3rd finished 3rd
B Main: started 8th finished 10th
A very big thank you to Michael Gee and Dad for taking me on the road for 7 huge days of racing down South. I learnt so much and though I still have a lot to learn I think I am better for going, that’s for sure.
Thanks to Mum and Tayla (my sister) for their support – they didn’t come with us because of Covid and the uncertainty around it all but were always on the phone, watching and supporting me from home.
Thanks to all my valued sponsors, family and crew for all their continued support and help getting me out on the race track each and every week.
