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JOHNSON THE MASTER AT SPEEDWAY CITY

By Phil Michell

American sensation Jason Johnson carried on his red hot form by dominating the 2006 Australian Sprintcar Masters at Speedway City. After setting the fourth quickest time in time trials and winning the top six-dash he led the entire 35 lap journey to claim his second victory in the prestigious event. During the presentation ceremony Johnson was full of praise for his car owners, Darren and Tricia Disbury and he was clearly elated to start his Australian tour with such an emphatic victory. “It’s an honor to come out here and race for Darren and Tricia Disbury. They always give me a great car and it is a pleasure to drive their car” commented an elated Masters Champion.

The first major race of the South Australian calendar attracted a field of 31 cars with four previous Masters Champions in the line-up. As it turned out those four drivers, Johnson, Max Dumesny, Robbie Farr and Garry Brazier would eventually fill the top four placings in the torrid feature event.

Dumesny started the night in tremendous fashion by setting the fastest time in qualifying with a 12.282 second blast around the 430 metre oval ahead of Farr, David Murcott and Johnson. With the fastest cars starting at the rear the heat action was intense with some exciting outside passing moves and unfortunately plenty of accidents. Heat one saw Johnson tag the turn three wall before rolling his immaculate Superloc #5 Eagle while heat three saw Phil March suffer a similar fate in the same turn.

In all six heats were conducted with the heat being claimed by Matt Egel, Danny Reidy, Ricky Maiolo (2), Darryl Wright and Grant Anderson. The highlight of the preliminary heats was clearly the heat victory by 21 year old Matt Egel, who claimed a victory in his first ever Sprintcar race and the result had the local crowd on their feet.

So once the heats had been completed the final line-up was one of the best ever assembled for the Australian Sprintcar Masters with Johnson, Dumesny, Farr, Brazier, Todd Wanless, David Murcott, Warrenne Ekins and Craig Vanderstelt completing the first four rows in the 16 car field.

As the green flag fell the field didn’t even get past the start line before the red lights were on as Matt Egel’s dream run came to end as his #75 Eagle fell on it’s side after contact with a number of cars. Mount Gambier’s Steven Lines was also an innocent victim as his #59 Cool chassis hit the wall hard. With both cars out of the restart Warrnambool’s Darren Mollenoyux joined the field as the first reserve but the field would soon be cut to 14 as David Murcott retired with front end damage to the Downing Brothers #97 Cool under the caution.

On the restart Johnson got the jump and lead Dumesny and Farr for the opening four laps until the caution was out again for Craig Vaderstelt, who was having trouble keeping the car in gear. The order remained Johnson, Dumesny, Farr and Brazier for the next three laps until the amber light was on again as Luke Dillon and Dan Morton spun in turn three, with both cars retiring to the infield further depleting the field.

So with only seven laps of the 35 lap journey the field had been cut to 10 cars and there had been no real changes up the front. Over the next 10 laps the top three remained fairly static but the big mover was Ekins who disposed of Brazier in a classic slide job in turn three shortly after the caution but threw it all away on lap 17 as he spun out of contention. A lap later he was involved in an incident on turn four that took him out of the event, along with Wanless, after the former National Sprintcar Champion slowed leaving Ekins nowhere to go.

From this point of the race it was a precession with the remaining seven cars hot lapping the venue for 17 laps with no real challenges for position. As the chequered flag dropped on the 2006 edition of the Masters Johnson crossed the line well ahead of Dumesny, Farr and Brazier, with Phil March, Matthew Reed and local Ricky Maiolo completing the finishers in the grueling event.