A hot day at Rushworth Speedway didn’t stop a big crowd heading to one of the best family entertainment arena’s in Goulburn Valley for the second action packed show of the season to see a field of Late Model Sedans hit the track along with the 3 Litre Sedan’s competing in an extremely important first running of the Dave Pollard Memorial supported by all Shepparton & Bendigo’s local heroes in the Goulburn Valley Auto Club classes.

Whilst the Goulburn Valley Auto Club have a huge club division following, everybody wanted to see the big powerful V8 Late Model Sedans & they didn’t disappoint.

Cameron Pearson the youngest driver amongst the entrants got his season off to the best possible start in what was a cracking feature race. Pearson qualified off the pole position with Edwards starting on his outside & the crowd was primed & ready to witness whatever history the Late Models produced.

Over twenty five laps, nobody could get past Pearson who already has wins under his belt last season when aged sixteen in this nationally popular category. Pearson the winner from Scott McPherson, Edwards, Daniel Barton & Tim McPherson. Heat victories in the lead up to the final went to Pearson, Chevy Edwards and then Scott McPherson.

Not being shown up by the big V8 Sedans, the 3 Litre Sedan six cylinders showed they can put on just as good of a show as the boys & girls in the big toys with Bendigo racer Lenny Clarke winning the first running of the David Pollard Memorial, remembering a fellow competitor who spent much of his career racing and living in the area. After some hotly contested heat races, Clarke came away with the feature race win ahead of Micka Boyle, Lucas Conder, Andrew Ahearn & Teejay Pollard.

For local classes, it was a night of breakthrough wins starting with Adam Box taking a maiden feature win for his team much to the delight of the team owner Nigel Box & the crew. Box won the Open Saloons, hot on the heels of a victory to Mark Cecil in the first event of the season, in the processing becoming the second driver to out gun the current class champion this year.

Early in the final Box battled with current champion Phil Lamb who was holding the early lead, Wicks who was right up there hassling the leaders spun her car and heading to the back of the field. Cecil who began last in the field after changing cars from a Torana to a Falcon before the feature race started was quickly in the mix for the victory within a handful of laps.

Succumbing to technical problems & leaving the race to Box, Lamb pulled out of the race on lap eight. From there Box held of the hard charging Keith Simmonds whilst Paul Lamb kept the Lamb name on the podium taking third place behind the two eight cylinder cars with his six cylinder. With the quality talent of the field and some excellent driving, Cecil would have to settle for fourth spot, Wayne Gilsenan finished in fifth spot.

Earlier in heat races the Hyundai of the Wicks family returned to the track with Carlie Wicks behind the wheel, she didn’t disappoint with two heat race wins, Phil Lamb who was well on his way to erasing the memory of his first meeting loss took three heat wins before the final & Box the other heat win.

GV Production Sedans competition finished with victory to Wayne O’Keefe when out gunned his challengers. Shane Hutchins and Scott Burchett would finish second and third behind O’Keefe who is a veteran of the track & showed that his knowledge of changing track conditions and control would be enough to bring him the win in his new look Holden, the only Holden to come away with a win in the GV classes for the night. Warren Alexander finished fourth with Scott Smith in fifth, O’Keefe was unstoppable in the heats winning three from three.

The local girls in the GV Ladies Saloons were challenged by out of towner Lisa McPherson, however it wasn’t until later that McPherson would really get amongst it after Jacquie Fitzpatrick & Leeanne Hodge took the wins in the first two heats & then GV Ladies champ the 18 year old Chloe Lamb took the win in third heat.

After a feature win in the first race meeting, Lamb who is already looking pretty good on paper to be able to defend her title for the 2016/17 season, took victory in the final making it two from two with McPherson a few seconds back in second with Kelly Nadort, Hodge & Ally Moore rounding out the top five.

Josh Cecil broke through for his first ever feature race win, in just his second season when he beat last meetings winner Lachie Fitzpatrick by just .704 of a second, in an outstanding finish. Driving his dads BA Falcon Cecil was full of praise in the presentation for his father Mark for giving him the ‘Good’ car for the night, Fitzpatrick finished ahead of Daniel Smith & Tristan McGraw. Earlier Cecil won all three heat events.

Another fantastic night at Rushworth Speedway is sure to keep the fans coming back for more.

The Goulburn Valley Auto Club will do it all again on December the 10th with the Victorian Title for Compact Speedcars, the VSC Sprintcars & all the club classes once again dishing up the action.

 

The Goulburn Valley Auto Club would like to thank the following supporters:
Super Balance Automotive – WG Panels – Goulburn Valley Oil Supplies – Provac Poultry Services – Bourke Fencing – Kyabram Motor Wreckers – The Rushworth Hotel – Kyabram Bearings – Autobarn Shepparton – Dave’s Lawn Mowing & Small Engine Repairs – Marty Turpin Mechanical – Ipta Fibreglass – FunCity Entertainment Complex Shepparton – Ross Adams Cartage Contractor – Rushworth Bakery – Maxam Printing

 

Written by
Harley Tindal & Dean Thompson
DMT Sports Media

For Goulburn Valley Auto Club t/a Rushworth Speedway