By Daniel Powell
There was no question about the pace of Danny Reidy during last weekend’s World Series Sprintcar (WSS) Championship round at Bunbury City Speedway over in Western Australia, but misfortune robbed him of the desired result.
Reidy was on track for podium finish during the preliminary feature race on the Friday night after he had started from position four only to have the front end of the NT # 5 Desert Palms Resort / Titan Plant Hire supported Eagle taken out by American import Jason Johnson after an ambitious passing attempt in the closing stages that resulted in a DNF and some considerable amount of damage.
“It was disappointing to have my good run ruined the way that it did and to add insult to injury the chief steward deemed me to be the cause of the whole incident,” said a dejected Reidy, who had earlier in the night topped the time sheets in qualifying. “I don’t understand how we can be running mid track on a restart and then have a driver dive underneath us, hit a rut and then bounce into us taking not only us but also himself out and then be deemed the cause of the accident. Obviously he [the chief steward] was watching another incident or something because it bemuses me to work out how he came to his decision.”
The following night Reidy returned to the track, but the incident from the previous night came back to haunt him after he had missed out on the Top 8 Dash by a couple of points and started the feature race out of position nine. Those points that were controversially taken away from the previous night saw him miss out on the Top 8 Dash.
Being the adventurous driver that he is, Reidy went searching for a different part of the track throughout the feature race, as the bottom of the track had taken rubber and the rest of the field stayed down there, but these moves didn’t bring the desired end result.
“We ended up seventh in the end, but certainly didn’t die wondering, as we tried on numerous occasions to try the top and it didn’t pan out too well as lost a number of spots on a few occasions,” said Reidy, who currently sits ninth in the WSS point standings. “We had a good turn of speed, but there wasn’t much up towards the top of the track and we weren’t able to get any higher than seventh.”
At Kalgoorlie International Speedway for the first Western Australian leg of the WSS last Wednesday night, Reidy had a horror end to his feature race charge after he had innocently became involved in someone else’s crash that resulted in him rolling over.
The Western Australian leg of WSS continues this Wednesday night at Manjimup Speedway for the very first time in WSS history and then off to the Perth Motorplex this Friday and Saturday night for the final round.
Reidy would like to thank Desert Palms Resort in Alice Springs, Titan Plant Hire, Camden Neon Signs, P & M Motor Body Repairs, Gonzo’s Race Pipes and Inglis Race Engines for all their support throughout the 2010/11 season.
The official Danny Reidy website can be viewed at: www.dannyreidy.com