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15 MELROSE
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Phil March chasing
Daryl Downing

March and Caruso take Round 2

By Phil Michell

The fourth meeting of the season at Speedway City served up a massive program with six racing categories including round 2 of the Sprintcar Track Championship for both 360ci and open Sprintcars along with the third round of the JD Couriers Super Sedan Championship.

Round of the 360ci Sprintcar Series saw 18 cars in the pit area with competitors from Adelaide, Murray Bridge, Berri, Broken Hill and Mildura but it was local based Salisbury Heights resident Mark Caruso who was the standout throughout the night. After winning a heat and starting from the pole he won the 30 lap Martelco Equipment Hire easily as he crossed the line ahead of current National Champion Jamie Cobby. Athelstone’s Owen Pitt continued his outstanding recent form to claim third ahead of Michael Burford, and Broken Hill resident Darryl Guerin.

Unfortunately the 30 lap feature was littered by a number of caution periods including a red light stoppage for Ryan Jones, who rolled his #63 Maxim in turn three. Earlier in the night the heat victories went to Cobby, Guerin, Caruso and Pitt.

In the open Sprintcar ranks nine cars fronted for action including three Darwin based teams. The event also saw the return of veteran driver Darryl Downing who was substituting for regular team driver Jason Loveday in the Moore Engineering #97 Cool.

Former Australian Champion Phil March managed to secure the cash on offer as he drove his Mildura Crane Hire Cool to an all the way win in the All Transport Crash Feature event. After starting from position one he defeated the field by almost a quarter of a lap ahead of the extremely impressive 21 year old Matt Egel in the Tony Bartlett owned Eagle. Third across the line was Darwin’s Mark Grosvenor in his #69 Murphy with Mark Reuter completing the top four. Mount Gambier resident Karl Enderl and Justin Sloan were the only other finishers in the 15 lap event.

It was a disappointing night for the Darwin based Bush Racing duo of Brooke David and Warrenne Ekins who both failed to finish the feature event.

With 13 cars present for round 3 of the JD Couriers Super Sedan Track Championship the racing proved to extremely intense but unfortunately it all came undone in the feature event. The 20 lap decider proved to be a case of survival of the fittest as only four of the starters managed to greet the chequered flag after a majority of the field was taken out in an incident on lap fourteen. The incident occurred after the right front wheel on the Gil Worthley Commodore came adrift on a restart while he was running second and the component failure triggered a massive pile-up in turn one.

After starting on the front row Bill Miller managed to avoid the chaos and went to defeat Trevor Ware, rookie Graham Stewart and Tony Howlett. As a result of Miller’s win, and the demise of both Dan Miller and Colin Neville, he stretched his lead in the overall series.

In the AMCA National finale Matt Crimmins defeated David Hartman and Brian Chadwick in the Protec Paints supported event while Robert Atkins drove his Holden Commodore to the RED Express Street Stock Feature.

The final category, the Junior Sedans, saw the field split into two groups with newly crowned NT Champion Adrian Cottrell winning the “A” division while rookie Chantelle Cappeluti was victorious in the “B” division.

The next meeting on the Speedway City calendar is Round 1 of the Proton Jumbuck Speedweek for Sprintcars along with Round 1 of the Oval Express Formula 500 Series on Boxing Day (December 26).