Qualifying in the Summit Racing Equipment Sportsman Series got underway at a sun drenched Willowbank Raceway on day one of the 2015 Fuchs Winternationals today.
Brackets completing two qualifiers were Top Sportsman, Super Sedan, Modified Bike, Super Street, Junior Dragster and Super Gas. Competition Bike, Super Compact, Supercharged Outlaws and Modified each completed one session.
Mark Harris ripped off a pair of 6.50’s to lead Top Sportsman into Q3 on Friday with a 6.558 at 228.56 mph in Q1 followed by a 6.562 at 226.92 in just his third and fourth passes in the 1941 Willy’s Coupe.
Stew Walsh and title chaser Steven Fowler joined Harris in the sub-seven second zone in second and third but neither came close to Harris who feels he has more in the car with one session remaining.
“We’re feeling pretty good,” said Harris. “We think we’ll get a handle on it, we’ve only done four passes in the car so we should go a bit quicker again.
“We ran 6.40s here last weekend and we just have to sort out a few timing issues and should be able to get it off the line to go 6.30s, 6.20s.
“We’ll give it a red hot go tomorrow, get some data and see if we can turn it up a little bit. The competition is going to be fierce here tomorrow. I just have to work on cutting a light, the car is pretty consistent.”
Rob Harrington leads Modified by two tenths with a 7.073 second pass from Dallas Everett with a 7.294. Matt Forbes, in his first national event in the bracket, sits third from defending Winternationals champion Jess Turner and championship leader Michelle Osborn.
Brian Hammond tops the list in Super Sedan going into day two with a best of 8.680 at 153.04 mph with Andrew Saliba currently occupying second. Mick Gamble had an incident in the braking area when his back window dislodged after a pass that had him in sixth during Q1, but he was checked by safety crews and deemed okay.
Kerry Ellis put in an impressive performance to qualify a full second ahead of the rest of the Modified Bike field on a 7.429 second pass, under the national AA/MB record of 7.550, at 174.77 mph. Reegan Ward is in second place with an 8.440 from Nathan Stone, Ace Edwards and Mitchell Ward.
Lucas Holz leads Super Street into Q3 on Friday with an 11.008 at 126.79 mph from Shawn Taskis, John Kerr, Ben Clark and Michael Peachy. Joint championship leaders Enzo Clemente and John Kapiris currently find themselves in 2th and 49th.
Dylan Everett is first in Junior Dragster after two sessions with an 8.010 from Monique Ambruosi, John Fenech and title contenders Tody Austin and Eden Ward in fourth and fifth respectively. Natalie Bishop, Bianca Humphreys and James Hazzard each went quicker than the eight second limit but are sure to figure in the top end of the chart in Q3.
Simon Isherwood heads Super Gas after two rounds with a near perfect 9.905 on the fixed 9.90 index followed by Colin Griffin and championship leader Graeme Spencer in third. Surprisingly defending two-time champion Matt Forbes is currently 13th and will be out to make amends in the final qualifier on Friday morning.
As conditions cooled and the sun disappeared, Supercharged Outlaws stepped things up a notch with 2013 champion Luke Marsden topping the first qualifying session with a 6.608 elapsed time. But Q1 was most notable for a spectacular incident involving Greg Ward who got out of the groove in his Altered, brushed the wall and careened across the track flipping upside down before touching the left wall and coming to a rest on his wheels. Safety crews were quick on the scene and Ward walked away.
Super Compact saw a few hair-raising moments as several competitors took the scenic route moving around the track but thankfully no one ended up in the wall. Competition Bike also completed Q1 but unfortunately at the time of writing results for Super Compact and Competition Bike were not available. Both brackets will be updated as qualifying continues on Friday.
Due to the delays following track clean up throughout the day, Super Stock was unable to complete Q1 while Modified Q2 was curtailed as the conditions became too cool to see out the remaining day one schedule. Both will pick up again tomorrow with qualifying set to resume from 8am.
For progressive qualifying results from day one of the Fuchs Winternationals please click here.
Images courtesy: dragphotos.com.au