Touring Car Challenge Results Round 3

Sidebottom Wins Wet and Wild Winton ATCC Round:

Victorian Ray Sidebottom, driving his VX Commodore, became only the second Future Tourer driver in the history of the Citilink Construction Group Australian Touring Car Challenge (ATCC) to take an outright round victory last weekend (May 6 – 7) at Winton Raceway.

After missing Saturday’s practice / qualifying sessions, Sidebottom Snr was forced to start the opening race from the rear of the field and at the completion of the 5-lap distance finished in 9 th. In the two handicapped races, over 7 and 9 laps respectively, Sidebottom recorded a second and a win which was good enough to claim the round victory overall ahead of Terry Wyhoon (AU Falcon V8 Supercar) and Luke Searle (BMW 320i Super Tourer).

Sidebottom kept his cool in wet and very cold weather conditions to come out on top around the 3.0km Winton circuit and became only the second Future Tourer driver to win an outright round since Andrew Gillespie’s breakthrough round win last year at Phillip Island Raceway.

Sydney based David Krause (VS Commodore V8 Supercar) started the weekend like a house on fire setting new lap records in practice and qualifying on Saturday. However, in the wet weather conditions Krause struggled and failed to figure prominently, which saw the 27-year-old lose valuable points in the overall ATCC standings to leader Wyhoon.

The ex Perkins Motorsport VS Commodore of Krause dominated both practice sessions along with qualifying and in the process set a new lap record for the ATCC with a 1:27.7294 qualifying lap that was unable to be matched. Searle was the next best in official qualifying with a 1:28.0068 lap followed by Wyhoon (1:28.7111), Peter Kelly (1:29.0067), Bryce Peter-Budge (1:29.1334), John Vergotis (1:29.2845), Dean Neville (1:30.1782), Shelton Loughrey (1:30.4335), John Burke (1:30.7949) and Future Tourer driver Amin Chahda (1:32.4583) was 10th.

Veteran Richard Mork suffered mechanical woes with his ex Perkins Motorsport VS Commodore in Saturday’s practice sessions, which consequently eliminated him from the remainder of the round. Ray Sidebottom (VX Commodore Future Tourer) didn’t contest either practice session or qualifying and only appeared in Sunday’s three races.

Wet and cold weather conditions invaded Winton Raceway for Sunday’s three ATCC races and it produced three different winners from three different classes, with Searle (Super Tourer), John Burke (V8 Supercar) and Ray Sidebottom (Future Tourer) all collecting wins.

In the opening race (5 laps), the scratch race (that goes off qualifying results – fastest to the front) saw Searle take victory after he started from the outside of the front row and led the entire 5-laps to take victory ahead of Peter Kelly (BMW 320i Super Tourer) who held down second from the outset, whilst Wyhoon finished third.

Behind the Top 3 came Peter-Budge (Peugeot 406 Super Tourer) in fourth ahead of pole sitter Krause, Neville, Neil Byers (Nissan Primera Super Tourer), Vergotis (AU Falcon V8 Supercar), Ray Sidebottom and in 10 th was Chahda (GT BA Falcon Future Tourer).

Shelton Loughrey, driving an ex Paul Weel EL Falcon V8 Supercar, was running as high as sixth in an impressive performance before he was forced to retire on the final lap.

With the wet conditions continuing for the second race, under the handicap format, VS Commodore V8 Supercar driver John Burke handled the conditions impressively to lead the entire 7 laps while the battling pair of Ray Sidebottom and Peter-Budge finished strongly behind Burke.

After suffering the disappointment of a non-finish in the opening race, Loughrey drove strongly to finish in fourth ahead of Wyhoon, Bruce Oaklands (VS Commodore V8 Supercar), Kelly, Andrew Gillespie (AU XR8 II Falcon Future Tourer), Byers and the struggling Krause back in 10 th.

Future Tourer pilot Chahda started the race strongly, running inside the Top 3 for a number of laps, only to be forced out on the fifth lap. Luck eluded Luke Everson (EF Falcon Future Tourer) in race two after the youngster failed to record a single lap.

In the ATCC third and final race (9-laps handicapped format) of the weekend it was Phillip Groeneveld (VS Commodore Future Tourer) who set the pace and led up until lap 7 on a drying track surface. It was then former car owner of the Groeneveld VS Commodore, Ray Sidebottom, who demoted him of the leading position and went on to take victory in race three along with the overall round victory.

A hard charging Wyhoon managed to work his way up to second at the fall of the chequered flag ahead of Shanan Sidebottom (VX Commodore Future Tourer), Searle, an impressive Groeneveld, Neville, Vergotis, Kelly, Loughrey and race two winner Burke, who rounded out the Top 10.

Misfortune struck Krause (lap 6), AU Falcon V8 Supercar driver Peter Vicary (lap 4) and Peter-Budge (lap 2), all failing to complete the race three distance.

ATCC round honours overall went to Ray Sidebottom ahead of Wyhoon and Searle. While the class wins were shared between Ray Sidebottom (Future Tourers), Wyhoon (V8 Supercars) and Searle (Super Tourers).

Round 4 of the ATCC is to be held at Queensland Raceway near Ipswich on the weekend of June 3 - 4.

To view session times and race results from the weekend, click here.

© AMRS 2005