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Back to May 2012 Motorsports News Archive
| 28-05-2012 at 07:00: Action Packed IPRAQ | |
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A field of 23 cars arrived with high expectations of gaining championship points and fast fun clean racing. As the cars took to the track for qualifying the times set were fast and David Skillender showed everyone how it was done by setting a time of 58.43 seconds to take the pole. Following Skillender closely was Trent Purcell in his RX-7 setting a time of 58.66 seconds with Troy Marinelli, Nissan Silvia, hot on his heels and Shane Satchwell, Datsun 1200, in forth. Race one began just before 2:30pm and from the drop of the green flag the crowd were on their feet as the cars got away from a rolling start. Satchwell in the Datsun started well but ended his race early when the diff decided it was time to give up the ghost. Charging hard through the field was Jason Clements. Starting on the fourth row of the grid in eighth place, Clements pushed his BMW M3 to the brink to take the chequed flag in first place ahead of pole sitter Skillender. Coming up third was Bruce Cook in his Ford Escort who drove a solid race to come from fifth to take the last spot on the podium. When Sunday came the drivers were eager to hit Queensland’s most famous of race tracks to get race two underway. Heading the field into the second race was Clements, as the finishing order of race one determined the starting grid for this race. As the green flag was waived it was Skillender who got the jump into the first two turns as the horsepower of his V8 Commodore proved too much for the BMW. But by the end of lap one it was Clements who was in the lead and remained there until the red flag came out for Trent Percell who had left the road.
Once the track was cleared the race was underway again and this time it was Clements who got the jump and lead the field into turn one. He would remain in this position unchallenged for the remainder of the race. Skillender found himself in trouble from Troy Marinelli who pushed the Commodore driver to the limits to remain in front and crossed the line only 0.64 seconds ahead. Race two had the crowd and teams talking to see if Skillender could do anything to stop the domination of Jason Clements. As the field lined up for the third race of the weekend, Skillender was hungry for victory and the rest of the field were ready to hunt them both down. Both drivers got off to a good start but it was Skillender who got the jump this time. As they headed into Hungry corner Clements was right behind Skillender but as they took the last corner of the circuit, Clements lost the car and impacted heavily into the outside tyre wall. Stepping out of the car was the best sign for the crowd and his team who saw the whole incident unfold. As the car went in the tyres that were there to reduce the impact for the crashing driver, the wall had collapsed and shot all over the track with a handful of drivers narrowly avoiding all debris. The race was red flagged. For the second time in as many races the Improved Production race was restarted, but this time Clements was not competing. This left Skillender and Marinelli to battle it out up the front for the 10 laps, finishing in that order. Nine seconds behind the lead pair was Bruce Cook finishing a fast third ahead of Graeme Wilkinson, Ford Escort, and Shane Satchwell who finished six tenths apart. Four cars failed to finish race three including Justin Wade, Charles Wright, Scott Douglas and Matthew Speakman who all had individual car issues. The final race for the weekend proved to be one of the most exciting of all as the top four cars raced hard and clean. Skillender lead from lap one but was pushed by Marinelli, Cook and Satchwell to the end. Swapping positions on almost every lap, the top four drivers worked hard for their finishing positions with Skillender just holding off Cook to take the win. Marinelli and Satchwell rubbed panels as they battled for the final spot on the podium with Marinelli holding on. With the top four cars all finishing within two seconds of each other, it was hard to remember there was a race going on behind them. Wright, Redman and Eastman were in a close fight for the final spot in the top 10. After all three drivers were lapped by the leaders it proved Wright in the BMW 325i was too strong and held on to the tenth place finish. The weekend had many ups and proved to be one of the best weekends of racing in quite some time. The downs were there too as a top driver, Clements, ended his weekend early and with quite a bit of work to do. The next round of the championship is June 9-10 as the drivers head back out to Morgan Park Raceway. For the full results and more information on Improved Production visit www.ipraqld.com |
Lakeside Raceway was the scene for the Improved Production Racing Association of Queensland second round of the 2012 championship.
The race was set for a restart and would see drivers take their original starting positions. The big loser in this was Shane Satchwell, due to starting rear of the grid after making car repairs he had made up seven positions before the red flag came out.
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