News
Eight Car Carnage Brings out the Red Flag in Race 2
The penultimate race of the Trico Trans Am Series has ended in dramatic fashion as a catastrophic failure for Tim Brook proved the catalyst for chaos.
An energetic Saturday morning race made it until Lap 5 when Brook’s engine let go, dropping a heap of fluid through Turn 13 and firing into the wall.
Directly behind, Jordan Boys slipped and found the fence in even heavier fashion – and he would have several more cars for company.
Brad Gartner, Joshua Thomas, Joshua Webster, Jason Pryde, Mark Crutcher and John Holinger also ended up in the mess, leaving eight cars in tatters with one more race for the season to come tomorrow.
That incident denied a possibly intriguing showdown for the lead, with Nathan Herne looking racy in pursuit of Todd Hazelwood.
Series leader Hazelwood had staved off James Moffat at the start, while Jackson Rice was swamped starting third.
Herne – who copped a five-second post-race penalty for contact with Boys yesterday, demoting him one position to fourth – moved up to third, and Edan Thornburrow also passed Rice immediately.
Herne then set about moving forward. After two half-attempts to pass Moffat for second at Turn 9, it was third time lucky for the Lismore product.
By the time the red flags came out, the order ran Hazelwood, Herne, Moffat, Ben Grice, Rice, Thornburrow, Elliot Barbour, Tom Hayman, Brett Holdsworth and Tom Davies.
Mark Bailey was top of the Pro-Am contingent in 11th, with Domain Ramsey and Des Collier the only others still running at the end.
It is yet to be determined what points, if any, will be awarded from the race which was red flagged just shy of the 10-minute mark.
Either way, the title will go down to the last day of the season, with Moffat still in striking distance of Hazelwood given there’s 60 points available tomorrow.