From Phil Michell
Last night Mount Gambier’s Steven Lines successfully defended his title as the Orrcon Steel Champion of Champions at Adelaide’s Speedway City defeating Luke Dillon and Victorian Nick Lacey in what can only be described as a torrid feature event. Initially the line-up for the 30 lap final consisted of a full field of 20 starters but after several aborted starts due to racing incidents only 12 cars actually managed to complete the opening racing lap.
“It is good to back home racing on my local tracks. Monte Motorsports have given me a great car and there is no better way to repay them with another feature win. We had a pretty tough time out west so it is good to get a great result. I really must thank Orrcon Steel and Wendy (Turner) for putting on this event and I also must thank the fans for coming out on a pretty cold night” commented the winner as he received his trophy on the podium.
Dillon’s second placing in the feature event has now put him in the box seat for his third successive Revolution Racegear Speedway City Track Championship with only the double points Grand Finale remaining this weekend .
Lacey’s third place was a fitting result as he has been a welcomed edition to the field at a majority of the Speedway City events this year and he well and truly deserved his podium result in recognition of the effort that the team had put in throughout the year.
Pre-race favourite and early race leader Robbie Farr, who was utilising an ex Joey Saldana Maxim Chassis, was forced out of the feature race with only eight laps remaining after a radius rod bolt failed on the #7 Machine. Up until that point Farr had led the entire journey and he was well on the way to victory. “The car tonight felt as good as we have ever had here in Adelaide. We struggled here this year with the Eagle Chassis so it was a big turn around for us” added Farr following the event.
Fourth across the line was Brad Keller, and in the process he managed to secure the “Hard Charger Award” after being sent to rear after changing his left rear tyre under one of the early red lights.
Steven Caruso, Justin Sloan, Allan Barlee, Eddie Lumbar and Darryl Guerin were the only other drivers to greet the chequered flag.
As previously mentioned the event took several attempts to get underway with the first of the cautions coming as the field entered turn three as David Murcott rolled the Downing Brothers #97 after a huge bicycle. This was the second time that Murcott had inverted the bright orange Cool after rolling in the dash after the right front wheel sheered the hub.
The second caution proved to be the most costly as it took four cars out of the race after an incident in turn two that resembled a train wreck. Ryan Jones, Jamie Cobby, Leith Ahlfors and Luke Bowey all sustained damage to their race cars with Cobby coming out the worst of the four cars.
On the next attempt Trevor Green and Daniel Pestka made heavy contact in the opening turn with Pestka rolling his #27 J&J and Green sustaining heavy damage to his Maxim. Ricky Maiolo was an innocent victim as he was caught up in the incident rolling his Eagle for the second time in the night.
Earlier eat winner on the night included Farr, Lines, Caruso and Murcott.
This Saturday night (April 9) the Sprintcars return to Speedway City for the Revolution Racegear Speedway City Track Championship Grand Final.