Round 2

The AMRS Battle Set to Continue at Wakefield Park

The Australian Motor Racing Series (AMRS) fires back into action this weekend (April 22 & 23) for the second round at Goulburn’s Wakefield Park Raceway and an exhilarating program featuring a variety of categories and cars sure to keep race fans entertained.

Quality fields in the Australian Touring Car Challenge, Production Touring Cars, Formula 4000, Thunder Sports and Kingswoods. This weekend also sees the first AMRS appearances for 2006 of the Stockcars, E30 BMW’s and Lotus Elise and Exige.

In the Australian Touring Car Challenge a field of 20 entrants sees V8 Supercars, Super Tourers, Future Tourers and Group A all battling it out on track. The racing in this class is very close and offers competitor’s every chance to challenge for race wins with the handicap race format.

With a mixture of makes and models, the Australian Touring Car Challenge saw Terry Wyhoon (V8 Supercars) take out the first round, but the likes of Matthew Hunt (V8 Supercars), Luke Searle (Super Tourers) and Andrew Gillespie (Future Tourers) amongst others hoping to halt Wyhoon’s reign.

Derek Pingel showed up his rivals in the opening Formula 4000 round and is keen to continue his winning ways. However, hard chargers such as Ty Hanger, Sam Dale, Mark West and Terry Clearihan are confident of ending the winning ways of Pingel. Formula 4000 is arguably the fastest category in Australian Motorsport, and if the opening round racing is anything to go, the action at Wakefield Park is sure to be hotly contested.

2006 is the debut of Production Touring Cars and it’s the category where you can take a late model road car and race it on the track with only minimum adjustments (including roll bars, a fire extinguisher and a five point safety harness). Cars are divided into Class A, B or C based on the power-to-weight ratio of the vehicle.

Throughout the three classes the Production Touring Car racing is spectacular with Luke Searle, Peter Kelly (both class A), Roland McIntosh, Natalie Willmington (both class C), Tony Saliba (class C) and newcomer Graham Roylett are all ready to get amongst the action.

Kingswoods, Thunder Sports and E30 BMW’s are also on the program, with the Stock Cars conducting a series of demonstrations on Sunday. The racing is sure to be fierce.

On Saturday afternoon, the AMRS will feature a 500km Endurance race for Lotus Elise and Exige cars.

In total, over 130 entries have been received and it’s certainly going to be an exciting weekend, jam packed with a great variety of cost effective Motorsport categories.

Racing on Saturday and Sunday will commence at 9am. Click here to download the full schedule for Round 2.

Entry for Sunday is $25 and children aged 13 and under are completely free of charge. Saturday entry will be $15 for adults and children 13 and under free, a weekend pass is only $30. Entry to the pit and paddock area is no extra charge, and gives fans the chance to get up close to the race cars and drivers.

Wakefield Park is located 10 km south of Goulburn on the Braidwood Road, approximately 2 hours drive from Sydney and less than 1 hour from Canberra.

It is unique among Australian circuits in offering spectators a ‘view from the comfort of your car’ facility on its hillside spectator area, with FM radio broadcasting of trackside commentary available through the car radio.

For further details please contact the Wakefield Park office on 0248 22 2811 during business hours, or visit their official website: www.WakefieldPark.com

The official AMRS website can be viewed at: www.amrs.net.au

The TV coverage from this round will air on SBS Speedweek 12 noon, 30 April.

AMRS delights at Wakefield Park

Goulburn's Wakefield Park provided the setting for a spectacular second round of the Australian Motor Racing Series today.

Racing in seven categories underscored the diversity of Australia's newest and fastest growing motorsports series.

Round two of the Yokahama Australian Formula 4000 and the Citilink Touring Car Challenge titles headed up the action packed program.

Derek Pingel retained his F4000 series lead despite a first lap incident in race two. Pingel took pole position and a race win in the opening race but was involved in a turn 2 incident with Mark West in the second."He went one side of me and then decided to go to the other. He hit my back wheel I went around and another car came around and took my nosecone off," Pingel said. He lost several laps but was surprised to find a new nosecone waiting to be fitted when he returned to pit lane. "I have to thank the guys from the Hocking team. They had a new nosecone waiting."

Despite the hasty repair Pingel went within a whisker of breaking the F4000 lap record in his desperate bid for points. Two times F4000 runner-up Ty Hanger took the final race and felt he had Pingel’s measure despite Pingel’s off. "I was already ahead when he went off and I was confident I could spread my wings if I had to," Hanger said.

The hard luck story of the race came from Sam Dale. The Mumbo Racing/Advanced Refrigeration Reynard appeared to have a podium position in the bag although under constant pressure from Mark West. On lap 17 of 20 things went awry for Dale, also at turn two. Dale’s visor had become smeared with oil from the car ahead of him during an earlier safety car incident. "I arrived at turn two and looked for the apex of the corner and all I saw was dirt," a disappointed Dale said.

Despite some minor stresses caused by the handicapping system, David Krause took outright points in the Touring Car Challenge in his thundering VS Commodore V8 Supercar. Krause battled Terry Wyhoon’s Falcon Supercar all weekend and a coming together at turn one could have turned ugly except for the skills of Wyhoon who called upon his speedway experience to catch his car at nearly full opposite lock and wrestle his careening monster around turn two.

Supercar class points also went to Krause with Luke Searle heading up the Super Tourers and another inspired performance from Amin Chahda netted him Future Tourer honours.

Mike Reedy (Radical SR3 Supersport) dominated qualifying and all three races in the Thunder Sports Championship. In qualifying Reedy outpaced Dennis Holland (Clubman Challenge) and Paul Quinn (Future Racer), while in the three races he continued that form. Those that feature in the Top 3 over the three races behind Reedy were Quinn, Holland, Wayne Green (Future Racer) and Kieran Dal-Maso (Future Racer).

The Production Touring Car Series, which allows you to compete in your road registered car under certain safety modifications, continues to flourish as interest increases. Newcastle based Luke Searle was the form driver of the weekend by winning all three races and coming out on top in qualifying driving his 2006 BMW 130. The Class A driver faced stiff competition from fellow class rivals David Capraro (Alfa 156 GTA) and Peter Kelly (2006 BMW 130), but that wasn’t enough to prevent domination.

Finishing in second and third outright for the round behind Searle in the Production Touring Cars was Capraro and local driver Natalie Willmington in her Class B 2002 Mitsubishi Magna. Class honours were taken out by Searle (Class A), Willmington (Class B) and Graham Roylett (2001 Proton Satria GTI) in Class C.

Local entrant Richard Huer continued his impressive form in the Fantastic Furniture Kingswoods from the previous round, but this time it was a complete demolition of his rivals by topping the time sheets in qualifying and being victorious in all four races over the course of the weekend. There were a gaggle of drivers that took up the fight to Huer but to no avail and they included Robert McGrath, Rod Moynahan, Cameron Eldridge, Bob Hepburn, Pedro Marusic and Glenn Deering.

Craig Munro was the dominant driver in the BMW E30 category that was making its first trip as a category outside of Victoria. Munro, driving a 1985 BMW E30, took wins in race one, two and four, while in the race three he finished second behind Julie Showers (1984 BMW 325i) in the reverse grid event. After taking pole position in qualifying, Nathan Geier (1985 BMW 321i) didn’t have race winning pace but remained inside the Top 3 in all but one race.

Making a much anticipated return to Motor Racing via the BMW E30s was Melinda Price, who had a lot of fun and showed some flare with a fourth placing in the race three reverse grid event. The former Castrol Cougar V8 Supercar Team driver loved the experience and had a smile on her face all weekend long.

On Saturday afternoon, the AMRS held the running of the very first Lotus 500 for Louts Elise and Exige models. This event was taken out the pair of Garry Dann and Sam Wall in their Lotus Elsie after they completed a total of 199 laps defeating the team of Ian Kegg, Daniel Seldon and Andrew Zerefos (the only other car on the lead lap) also in a Lotus Elise and rounding out the podium in third was another Lotus Elise shared between Adam Graham, Anthony Tort and talented Go Karter Matthew Wall who did 198 laps. The first Class-A (Lotus Exige) cars home was in sixth (193 laps) with its drivers being Ross Dillon, Jeff Church and Justin Wade.

The weekend of May 6 – 7 at Winton Raceway in Victoria is the next scheduled Australian Motor Racing Series round and it will feature the Australian Touring Car Challenge, Yokohama Australian Formula 4000 Drivers Championship, Production Touring Cars, Thunder Sports Series and the Fantastic Furniture Kingswoods.

For session and race times from the weekend, click here.

To view the results for this round, please select a category:

For information on other rounds of the Australian Motor Racing Series, please click below:

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© AMRS 2005