Bomberle Wins 2015 Super Truck Opener at Winton

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John Bomberle has won the opening round of the 2015 Australian Super Truck Championship, held at Winton Motor Raceway over the weekend as part of the Victorian Motor Racing Championships (VMRC).

Bomberle, who returned to truck racing last year after an absence of several seasons, qualified on pole position and won three of the four races, including the final, 10 lap Super Prix.

“We did a lot of hard work on the truck, and the team spent quite a few hours getting it ready,” Bomberle said.

“It looks a million dollars and it was a good result for us; we had a bit of an issue in one of the races but we came good in the last race so it was an excellent result for our team.”

Bomberle attributed his race win to improvements made to his Kenworth T900 truck over the off-season.

“We’ve rebuilt the engine, we’re trying a new engine management system, and we’ve also found some handling improvements; the brakes are working brilliantly so it’s all come together and made the truck a lot better to drive,” Bomberle said.

The other race winner was last year’s New Zealand Super Truck Champion John Hepburn, who travelled to Australia to take over the truck campaigned last year by Shane Gray, while Steven Zammit finished on the podium overall after consistent results in all four races.

Two races were also held on Saturday for the separate Super Trucks Team Championship; they were won by Hepburn and Zammit.

The VMRC meeting also included the second round of the Formula Vee national series, which was won by Daniel Reynolds.

Making his first appearance in Vees for more than two seasons, Reynolds instantly returned to form, qualifying second and winning the first two races; he settled for second in the final race behind Kieren Glover, who set a new lap record and finished second overall for the weekend, also moving into the series lead.

The consistent Heath Collinson finished third overall with a trio of fourth-place finishes, ahead of Mitch Quiddington who was lucky to finish Race 1 after a high-speed tangle with his older brother, Ash Quiddington.

The BMW Drivers Cup staged a one-hour, twin-driver endurance race, which was won by Sean Bell and Anton Bergman, from the fast-finishing Phil Showers/Nathan Geier entry.

Geier was significantly quicker than Bergman in the closing stint, cutting the margin from around 25 seconds after the compulsory driver-change pit stops, to just over five seconds at the chequered flag.

Brian Bourke/Cruz Cody completed the podium ahead of Geoff Bowles, who teamed up with his nephew and Tekno Autosports V8 Supercar data engineer Jarrod Bowles. The brother and sister combination of Chris and Jess Bell rounded out the top five.

Bruce Henley won all three Sports Sedan races in his ex-Patrick Dempsey Mazda RX8 GT, with Lee Ulhorn finishing second in Races 1 and 2, and third in the final.

After a weekend fraught with mechanical problems which eliminated him from Races 1 and 2, Liam Hill produced a storming drive in the final, charging from the rear of the field to second in his Hyundai Excel.

Daniel Zandt won the Super TT round in his Mini Challenge car after a close battle with the Commodore Cup car of Adam Lloyd, with Steve Murray finishing third overall, while Chad Cotton took a clean-sweep of the Miniature Race Car Series races to take overall honours from Hagen Skinner and Jake Klein.

For the first time, the Miniature Race Car Series also featured the Legend Cars, adapted from speedway competition, and Greg Davis was the best Legend Car runner ahead of regular Pulsar Challenge competitor Matt Thewlis.

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