From SRA
Veal wins, Milburn impresses, Vogels takes Series lead while Mollenoyux and Bell do it the hard way through the B Main to stay in the top three of the points race at the Eureka Garages & Sheds Sprintcar Series round conducted at Simpson Speedway last night.
With the challenging track once again testing the drivers skill and setups Jamie Veal in the V35 J&J held on to take the Series round win from a hard charging Brett Milburn, late in the race Milburn put the nose of the V68 machine up the inside of Veal for the lead but could not go on with the pass and eventually settled for a well deserved second place.
At the completion of the round one heats the pressure was on for some of the Series Title contenders, with Lumber, Bell, Saville and Van Ginneken joining the Simpson upside down club the real interest was Bell the Series leader had just dropped valuable points to make it into the A Main. Third place man in the Series, Mollenoyux was next to strike drama in the first round of heats also with a mechanical failure preventing him from starting his heat race as well.
At the completion of the heat races Mike Van Bremen had taken the top qualifier spot from Veal, Milburn, Vogels, Foster and Rankin. With these drivers heading into the top six shootout for their final grid positions Van Bremen went from first place to sixth for the Start of the A Main. Final qualifying order was now Veal from Vogels, Rankin, Milburn, Foster and Van Bremen.
All eyes were on the B Main event with both Bell and Mollenoyux in the event and needing to take a transfer spot for the main to be able to keep their Championship hopes intact. Mollenoyux was off the front row but Bell was in P8 and had to be careful on the tricky surface to move forward into a transfer spot. Mollenoyux took the win to head to the A Main with New South Wales driver Glen Saville in second followed by Bell, Jones, Stark, and Matthews claiming the last transfer spot.
Drama as the cars started for the A Main with an altercation between the V17 car of Jones and a push ute, end result and Jones was out from the main event. Lap one and Veal wins the start from Vogels and Milburn immediately started to work over Vogels for second place. After a couple of restarts due to spinning cars the order at the front was Veal, Vogels, Milburn, Rankin, Van Bremen and the impressive rookie driver Mitch Foster.
Lap eight and the drivers had found there rhythms and the moves were on, Milburn made the pass for second on Vogels and Mollenoyux had moved up the ladder to be in sixth place by lap eleven, by this time the local drivers of Vogels and Rankin had started there own war for third place, Rankin made a move into third only to have Vogels take the place back a few laps latter.
Mid race distance and Milburn was throwing everything at Veal to unsettle the young driver with Vogels, Rankin and Mollenoyux staging a battle for third place. Further back in the pack Bell was not making much in the way of progress eventually moving up to finish in a respectable eighth place and gain some very valuable points.
The last five laps and the challenges were still on all the way to chequered flag with Veal taking the win from Milburn, Vogels, Rankin and Mollenoyux rounding out the top placing’s next up was Van Bremen in sixth place followed by Foster, Bell, Jenkin, Matthews who put a good drive from last position on the grid, next home was Sutherland, Saville and Ludeman.
Vogels consistency has once again proved valuable and has moved him to the top of the leaders table to take a slender lead in the Series from Bell over Mollenoyux going into round eleven of the Eureka Garages and Sheds Series at Avalon Raceway.
Heat race wins on the hight went to:
V52 Darren Mollenoyux, V6 Mike Van Bremen, S20 Glen Sutherland, V35 Jamie Veal, Act4 Mitch Foster, N75 Glen Saville
Eureka Garages and Sheds Series contingency awards:
(ELF RACING FUELS top point scorer – V6 Mike Van Bremen
AMERICAN RACER TIRE random draw between position 6th and 18th –
11th place – V26 Nick Lacey
D&F RACING PRODUCTS hard luck of the night – N36 Eddie Lumbar
CASCADE NATIONAL P/L 1st competitor not to transfer from B to A-Main –
V82 Simon Van Ginneken
METRIC MEN End of Series most heat wins – V70 John Vogels, V35 Jamie Veal (4 Wins each)
JOHN SIDNEY RACING most cars passed in A-Main (end of series) cars passed on the night – V52 Darren Mollenoyux, V9 Rod Matthews (8 cars each), Overall – V88 Stephen Bell (20 car)
Eureka Garages and Sheds Series – KTM Top 10:
1st – John Vogels – 1859
2nd –Stephen Bell – 1845
3rd – Darren Mollenoyux – 1723
4th – Nick Lacey – 1648
5th – Jamie Veal – 1627
6th – Brett Milburn -1599
7th – Mike Van Bremen – 1588
8th – Ryan Davis – 1427
9th – Carl Ludeman – 1406
10th – Rod Matthews – 1382
Essendon Ford – Trip to America
(End of Series random draw between 11th & 20th place)
11th – Grant Anderson – 1309
12th – Dylan Jenkin – 1304
13th – Domain Ramsay – 1222
14th – Mitch Foster – 1159
15th – Glen Sutherland – 1150
16th – Tim Rankin – 1083
17th – Eddie Lumbar – 1057
18th – Andrew Cox – 999
19th – Dennis Jones – 993
20th – Jack Lee – 920