14 June 2023 | General

Dalton finds new confidence after round win

Lochie Dalton will take a confident but cautious approach into future rounds after dominating the National Trans Am Series at the Hi-Tec Oils Race Winton.

The Tasmanian was in red-hot form from start to finish during the fourth round of the Shannons SpeedSeries, which started by putting his Ford Mustang on pole in an all-important qualifying session on Saturday morning.

After nailing the first rolling start of the weekend, the AWC Garry Rogers Motorsport entry was then able to hold off the rapid Cody Gillis and All American Driveline’s Ben Grice to join a talented list of National Trans Am Series winners.

Dalton then used that momentum to win races two and three in a similar fashion, including having to defend his position over 100km of competitive racing in the extended race three to ensure the round win.

“It’s good to finally get a good one, we have been in the running or thereabouts, but we just had to put it all together as we did at Winton,” Dalton said.

“We just got it all right. The car has always been there, it’s always been good enough, I just needed to put it together myself and perform out on track.

“Qualifying made our job a bit easier, drivers like James Moffat and Owen Kelly had a lot of speed but they couldn’t do much in the dirty air, so I think we were a bit fortunate there.

“I knew the start was important, if Cody got the jump on me, I would have had to attack him straight away, but I feel like I have been a bit better with my starts this year as a whole.”

The celebrations didn’t last very long for Dalton after his first win with the focus immediately shifting to repeating his efforts in races two and three.

“It was like, okay, I’ve done it now but let’s do it again in the next one. I just wanted more and more of that feeling,” Dalton explained.

“I like being up the front and pushing hard, I’m really hard on myself but now that I have picked up my first win, I realise it feels so much better walking away with that result.

“But you have to keep in mind the title race as well, you don’t want to risk too much for a race win and blow it all up if it goes wrong, so I will have got to be a little bit cautious of that.”

With a long break between Shannons SpeedSeries rounds, Dalton will still be spending plenty of time in the car, including the next round of the Dunlop Super2 Series.

“I’ve got a couple of Supercars rounds in between now, I’ll be able to keep busy and get some laps in,” Dalton stated.

“There are similarities with both categories’, the horsepower and front end are very similar, but they do drive a bit differently.

“Gen 3 is a little bit closer to Trans Am so that was the main thinking behind it, the more racing definitely helps and our plan of attack.”

Lochie Dalton and the National Trans Am Series will next feature during the fifth round of the Shannons SpeedSeries at the Queensland Raceway on 11-13 August.