At the recent Fuchs Winternationals, Graeme Spencer ended a nine-year drought taking out his second Super Gas championship in an exciting final round of the 2015 Summit Racing Equipment Sportsman Series.

Coming into the event on the maximum 160 points for the short season, Spencer reached the quarter finals on a 9.906 second pass against Barry Moore confirming the championship once closest rival and two-time defending champ Matt Forbes bowed out in Round 1.

“I’m extremely happy about winning the Super Gas tittle for 2015,” said Spencer. “This is my second Super Gas Championship I’ve won. My first one was June 2006 being the 05/06 series. So it’s been a long nine years trying to secure a second championship. 

“I was runner up last year. However I felt like a winner finding out after the Australian Nationals that for the first time ANDRA was awarding championship runner-ups with the newly introduced Silver Christmas tree trophy. 

“Let me just say that it wasn’t through lack of trying.” 

This year Spencer was able to take it a step further going the long way around and competing at every event the Super Gas bracket was staged. 

“I made an error in Adelaide so then decided to make the trip to the one day meeting in Queensland in April,” explained Spencer. 

“That proved to be the right decision as I topped qualified at that meeting and had a bye into Round 2. Although I didn’t get past Round 2, those vital points gave me the maximum 160 points and I stayed in the lead for this season going forward into the Winternationals. 

“I knew potentially other racers had a chance of taking this opportunity away from me. We were quietly nervous but we stuck to our plan and strategies. Round 1 was the most pressure as I had to secure the win and achieved it on a 9.906.

“My crew and I didn’t know until we got back to the pits and checked the Round 1 results. We then calculated and knew that the championship was secured after learning that our closest threat, Matty Forbes had been knocked out.”

Spencer then set his sights on the Winternationals crown but unfortunately it wasn’t to be as Dale O’Dwyer secured the quarter final win on a holeshot with a .004 reaction time and 9.940 elapsed time to Spencer’s quicker but losing 9.939 ET following a .022 RT at the tree.

“Unfortunately I lost Round 2. My goal is to eventually one day win the Winternationals and after 10 straight years in a row of trying and two Championships, I’m hoping that this will eventually become reality. Its one major race meeting I’ve haven’t achieved to date.”

“Racing in Super Gas sometimes I think its just luck being on your side. However careful planning and lots of data all helps.

“Racing to a fixed index is a difficult thing to achieve when you’re talking about close racing between other competitors in this class.

“However I travel a lot to chase points, this helps as most would know we don’t have a race track in Melbourne.”

Image: dragphotos.com.au