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Garry’s Darwin Triple Crown Friday Wrap

By Garry O'Brien

As usual the heat was turned up for the southern state visitors to the Merlin Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway for day one where the Porsches and S5000 practiced while the popular Combined Sedans qualified.

PORSCHE PAYNTER DIXON CARRERA CUP AUSTRALIA

It appeared that round one winner Harri Jones would post the fastest time in the leadup to qualifying tomorrow. That was until Dylan O’Keeffe pulled out the day’s best effort of 1min 06.5518s as the second of two practice sessions concluded.

Jones set the pace in the first session ahead of Christian Pancione, David Wall and Dale Wood, and was second in the next. David Russell who won a race at the previous round, was third fastest in session two, in front of Pancione, Calum Hedge and Wall – all of these Pros in the 1m 06s bracket.

Luke Youlden was seventh fastest in the session and overall, ahead of Wood, Michael Almond and Ryan Suhle. Just behind and only seven tenths of the pole time were Bayley Hall and Angelo Mouzouris after the latter had an encounter with a concrete wall in session one.

Of the Morris Pro-Am runners, Adrian Flack showed the way in both sessions and finished the day ahead of class rivals Tim Miles, Sam Shahin, Liam Talbot, Rodney Jane, Stephen Grove and Geoff Emery.

 

S5000 AUSTRALIAN DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP

James Golding was the fast man on Friday in S5000

In both the practice session’s for the category’s first visit to the Top End, Garry Rogers Motorsport’s James Golding was the pacesetter with his best lap of 1min 03.6466s in the opening outing.

Kaleb Ngatoa was second fastest in that session for Team BRM but had a suspension drama in the second and parked safely off Turn 5. However his earlier time held sway for second overall.

Third fastest on combined times was Nathan Herne (GRM) ahead of Cooper Webster (Versa Motorsport), series leader Joey Mawson (BRM), Aaron Cameron (GRM), Tim Macrow (TMR) and Blake Purdie.

 

COMBINED SEDANS

Improved Production cars dominated the top spots in the qualifying session, which was shortened by a red flag, partly perpetrated by the Justin Keys who bunkered his Holden Commodore VS after he set the fastest time.

Second best was Troy Marinelli (Nissan 200SX) from Rob Braune (BMW E30) who had been the pacesetter in the earlier practice session. Next best were the Commodores driven by John Callegari (VN) and Matt Logan (VE) ahead of Justin Wade (Ford Falcon EB) and Rod Jessup (VE) who was also stopped out on track.

Best of the Commodore Cup cars was David Ling in ninth ahead of Shane Smith and Ian Roots while Hyundai Excel honours went to 17th placed Josh Richards in front of Ben Gomersall and Rylan Gray. Adam Butler was the best of the HQ Holdens in 26th with Peter Anderson and Marian Bujnowski the next two.

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