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Saturday, 02 September 2006 |
With a meagre two week turnaround, round six of the Shannons Australian Production Car Championship moves from Phillip Island in southern Victoria to the warmth of a Sunshine State’s spring at Queensland Raceway on September 2-3.
There was a hiccup in David Ryan’s title quest at the last round although he retains a sizeable lead in the outright and Class A points scores. His Shell/Armour Auto Ford Falcon XR6 Turbo suffered a engine glitch off the start of race one where it went into limp mode. He was able to recover and still win the race before further drama struck in the second outing, the first of two handicap races.
“The car broke a driveshaft off the line and we tried to limp around to
gain points, but ultimately we pitted and were out of the race,” Ryan
said. “If John Houlder’s Intune Motorsport team hadn’t helped out, we
would not have made the third race at all.”
“John is right behind us in the Championship and displayed real
sportsmanship in giving us the parts we needed,” added Ryan crew chief
Gary Merlino.
Ryan won the third race easily despite starting from the back of the
grid and some 45 seconds after the Class C cars started. He was no
doubt assisted by race two winner Luke Searle (BMW 130i) having a lose
at turn two, and Steve Briffa’s troubled weekend in the Holden
Commodore SSZ.
Both those rivals are not racing this weekend, leaving the serious
challenges to come from Houlder and Chris Delfsma (Falcon XR8s), and
the Commodore of Leigh Mertens, which after a troubled start to the
championship, recorded the fastest lap times in each of the three races
at Phillip Island two weeks ago.
Nick Dunkley is also in a XR6 Turbo, backing up after a sensational
race two at PI where he finished second. He repelled the late challenge
of Mertens before unfortunately being caught up in Searle’s early
off-road excursion in race three.
Class B will again be a tussle between the Osborne Motorsport Toyota
Celicas and Allan Shephard. The latter beat the team cars in a close
and enthralling duel the last time they race here, but then he was
aboard the Thrifty Honda Integra Type R. This time he is also Celica
mounted while Colin Osborne already has the class championship in the
bag and is now eying off an outright podium placing.
“We still were in contention for the outright championship but were
knocked off the road when Briffa had his lose. Our car suffered damage
to a wheel which put us out of the race,” Osborne said. His team mate
this weekend will be Trevor Keene.
The latter’s Trophy Class Toyota MR2 will race in the hands of Phil
Alexander who is up against the Donut King’s Adam Beechey (Integra) and
Brendan Cook’s BMW while Darren Best can stitch up a Class C title with
a round to go.
Later today the cars will qualifying for race one, a ten laps scratch
race that counts to class points only. Then there will be two handicap
races over 20 laps which count to both outright and class standings.
All the latest news is on the website www.pcaa.com.au, and for information regarding the 2006 Shannons APCC, contact Garry Mennell - Series Administrator - on 02 4577 2779
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Last Updated ( Friday, 05 January 2007 )
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