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Back to March 2012 Motorsports News Archive
| 15-03-2012 at 08:00: Skillender’s Clean Sweep | |
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Practice and qualifying saw cars slipping and sliding all over the 2.1Km circuit with David Skillender in his powerful VS Commodore proving he is one to watch in 2012. Skillender set himself up for the best start to the year by taking pole for race one with a time of 1:09.362. Not far behind was David Waldon in his Mazda RX3. The range of cars within the field varies dramatically with Commodores, Escorts, Datun’s, BMW’s and a mix of Toyota’s with the stage being set for many a battle throughout the field. As the 20-plus cars left pit lane the Ford Focus of Paul Redman lingered in the paddock. The field were lined up and needed to wait for Redman to join the back of the grid. The lights went red and then off and the field was away. But as soon as the green flag dropped there was trouble for second place starter David Waldon. The car stalled at the front of the grid and would not move. The rest of field swerved and ducked left and right before the inevitable happened. Waldon was hit hard from behind by fellow RX3 driver Ian Johnson. Johnson was changing from second to third gear when he hit the stricken car of Waldon causing both drivers to be out before turning in a lap under green. As the lead pack made its way round to complete lap one, the damaged cars were gone but the oil and coolant was still on the racing line. Drivers were sliding their cars under brakes to make turn one with a few drivers leaving the road. A few laps in and Skillender was pulling away from second placed Adrian Kroonstuiver’s RX7. Further back in the pack Shane Satchwell in the little yellow Datsun 1200 was making ground. Starting in sixth, Satchwell moved up two places to be in control of forth before an off at turn one and two. Regaining control and still sitting in forth the little Datsun was pushed hard and was able to keep Troy Marinelli’s Nissan Silvia at bay. As the battles continued all race the end results were almost a fore gone conclusion after lap four. Skillender won by an impressive 15.08 seconds from Kroonstuiver and third placed Bruce Cook in the Ford Escort. Race two and three saw many more battles take place throughout the field with a number of drivers pushing their cars over the limit. Engines and gearboxs were paying the price for the hard racing of the IPRAQ drivers while others put in their best performance. David Skillender not only won race two but on his way to victory pushed his commodore to a new lap record with a 1:07.710. Second place finisher Kroostuiver kept Skillender on pace as he pushed him all the way through the race and ended only 2.1 seconds behind after the 10 championship laps. James Peck in a Mazda RX7 was 22.9 seconds behind the leaders but held on to finish a strong third. Pushing hard in race two was Shane Satchwell who set the third fastest time of the race but succumbed to engine issues late in the race which would end his weekend. Matthew Speakman and Justin Wade both failed to finish the race due to mechanical issues. Race three was just as hard fought as race one and two although the field had become smaller due to a number of cars having terminal issues. Skillender once again set the fastest lap time and lead from start to finish ahead of Kroostuiver and Tony Chapman in his Datsun 1600. Round two of the Queensland Improved Production Championship takes place at Lakeside Park just north of Brisbane on May 26-27. |
The car covers were off and the cobwebs blown out as the first race of Improved Production took place on the weekend at Morgan Park in Warwick.
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