From Archerfield Speedway
Qld young gun David Muir continued his impressive season with his second victory in the 2011/12 KRE Race Engines Sprintcar Track Championship at Supercheap Auto Archerfield Speedway on Saturday night January 21, taking full advantage of some early errors by his rivals to win the night’s thirty lap Feature and in doing so storm his way into contention for the Championship crown with six Rounds remaining.
Muir, who also won Round 4 in November and now has five top five finishes from the nine Rounds to date which includes four podiums, started the main event from the inside of row two behind Dash winner Bryan Mann and Todd Wanless. Muir had signalled his intentions to use the highline earlier in the night with some more of his now trademark runs around the top of the racetrack to win Heat 4 by stealing the lead from Clem Hoffmans on the final corner so it came as no surprise when he went to the top again in the Feature.
His run to the front of the Feature was aided though by two uncharacteristic spins by both Mann and Wanless in the early laps, Mann spinning in turn four while running second and Wanless in turn one just a few laps later while leading. Both times Muir was up top and making progress, both times it looked only a matter of time for the youngster to gain the position.
For Mann and Wanless, their trip to the tail of the field would have consequences they would not prefer.
Mann was involved in an incident that left Brett Thomas’ #9 Maxim upside down in the middle of turns three and four on lap twelve and he was then shown the black flag under the second push rule after his earlier spin and also being deemed the primary cause by the officials in the Thomas incident. The consequence of Mann’s DNF is that it will have a substantial effect on the points lead he carried into the night.
Wanless had moved his way back up to eleventh when he was tagged by Anthony Lambert who had gotten into the wall along the back straight. Wanless took his second wild ride in as many race nights, coming to rest in turn three and taking some time to emerge from the car shaken but otherwise okay.
Meanwhile up front, Muir was extending his lead every lap over Darren Jensen and Darrell Hodges as Melissa Boyes worked her way into fourth with a nice pass on Adrian O’Connell. Matt Butler relegated O’Connell to sixth two laps later as he completed his run into the top five after starting fifteenth with Mark Pholi, Ben Hilder, Dan Murray and Brent Kratzmann the top ten at the chequers.
In other racing on the programme, Brittany Grose continued her good form of late with victory in the fifteen lap Modlites Feature ahead of Scott Lehfeldt and Merv Tennant, Maddie McGee raced her way to a popular win over Jayden Gill and Dylan Menz in the P&M Motor Body Works ASCF Junior Sedan Feature race and Andrew Robinson won his first Feature of the season at Archerfield with a flag to flag win in the AMCA Nationals main event with Kristy Bonsey and Steve Potts joining him on the podium.