Jordan Boys claimed his first overall round victory in the Australian Formula Ford Series on another record-breaking weekend of motorsport in the Victorian Motor Racing Championships at Winton.
Boys won the weekend’s first two races before following Leanne Tander home in the final to secure first place overall ahead of the main title protagonists, Tander and Will Brown.
Tander was relieved to secure the runner-up spot after an incident in Race 1 threatened to derail her series campaign. On the very first lap, she was battling with polesitter Jayden Ojeda when the two cars made contact on the exit of turn 3. The damage to Tander’s car necessitated an unscheduled pit-stop to change the radiator, but she was still able to salvage valuable points by finishing 11th.
A determined Tander charged from 11th to second in Race 2 before winning Race 3, while Will Brown finished second, third and fifth in the three races to equal Tander’s points haul for the weekend and finish third overall on a countback. As a result, Tander has maintained her 32-point advantage over Brown with one round remaining.
After qualifying on pole position, Ojeda was forced to retire due to damage from his incident with Tander in Race 1, but as consolation he was able to break the lap record in Race 3.
The lap record also fell in the Vic V8 category, with Mark Kakouri lowering the benchmark by more than two seconds in his Holden VH Commodore during Race 1, while chasing the Ford XB Falcon Coupe of Victor Argento.
However, an incident with Graeme Meer at the start of Race 2 eliminated Kakouri from the remainder of the weekend, and Argento capitalised to take the round win from Mick Pitcher (VT Commodore) and Nash Harris (VN Commodore).
Driving the ex-Prancing Horse Racing Ford AU Falcon V8 Supercar raced by Mark Noske/Craig Baird at Bathurst in 2001, Andrew O’Connell won all the Super TT races however the car was ineligible for points, and the round win was thus taken by Iain McDougall (Mini Challenge car) ahead of Matthew Bloem (Mitsubishi Evo) and Ryan How (Mini).
Running as combined races within Super TT were the Stock Cars, which were won by David Hender, from Brian Walden and Zac O’Hara.
Reigning Australian Formula Ford Champion and current Toyota 86 Series front-runner Cameron Hill made a guest appearance in the Legend Car series and duly won the round. He didn’t have it all his own way though – he was forced to play second fiddle to the points leader Kyle Angel in the first two races. However, he beat Angel off the line and held him out for the win in Race 3, and when Angel retired from Race 4 with mechanical problems, Hill was perfectly positioned to take the round win.
“It took a while to come to grips with the car but by following Kyle in one of the races, I learned a lot and I had the hang of it by the last two races,” Hill said.
The battle for second raged ferociously throughout each race, with the consistent Rick Christy eventually prevailing ahead of speedway competitor Liam Heaton after debutant Nathan Predo spun off the circuit.
Phil Deane won the Production TT round in his AU Falcon, ahead of Daniel Van Der Heyden, who was over the moon with his victory in Race 3. Stephen Harrison was third overall.
Johnny Rachele took a clean sweep in Pulsar Challenge, while Sylvain Cattier won the regularity events from Benalla Auto Club committee member Rob Hoskins, who swapped into the Winton Angels 24 Hours of Lemons Falcon after his primary car failed.
