McFadden back on top

James McFadden has continued his strong form into the new year by winning round 10 of the Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series at Bunbury Speedway.

McFadden won two of three High Limit International races at Perth Motorplex before falling short to Kyle Larson in the decider.

But when the High Limit show rolled out of town, it was the Brady Motorsport Aussie, who was again at the top of the tree in the New Year’s Day race at Bunbury.

McFadden started the 30-lap final third and took 17 laps to haul in Kerry Madsen and was unchallenged from there.

It was an eventful night with American star Brad Sweet flipping at Turns 1-2 on Lap 10.

It was McFadden’s fourth win with the Brady family-owned team, headed by former racer Sheldon Brady this season.

“The team is firing on all cylinders, all eight of them, the KRE is ripping,” he said.

“Our car, we basically ran the same as we ran at Kwinana and it went around the track nice.”

“The track was brutal and it was tough to keep it on all four wheels.

“I just try to be a conservative as I can and keep it on all four wheels because it is a lot of work for the guys tomorrow if you wreck a race car.

“We were fortunate enough to get through traffic good and capitalise when Kerry made a mistake.”

For Madsen it was a case of so near, yet so far after looking solid in the Diamond Bay Motorsport W26 for the first 17 laps.

He was third in his qualifying group and took full advantage of a front row start in his heat race to claim a win.

Having started the A Main on the front row with Keen, Madsen dominated the early stages, but lost ground as the race went on.

Not only did he lose the lead to McFadden, he was also overhauled by Ryan Newton, who flew from eighth to second in the dying stages on the penultimate tour.

Newton was unstoppable rising from fifth to second in the finale three laps.

Newton said the surface “came alive” in the last couple of laps.

“I pulled my wing back a little bit and the car took off, so I could just run around those guys and they were stuck behind lapped cars,” he said.

Madsen admitted he was “a little disappointed” to drop out of the top two.

“You just had to be really careful with the lapped cars I thought,” Madsen said.

“I had my chances, so nothing to complain about.”

Rounding out the top five were Jock Goodyer and Gio Scelzi.

Joining Sweet on the sidelines was Daniel Harding, who tagged the fence, plus poleman Michael Keen after clashing with Andrew Priolo on the final corner of the final lap.

Round 11 of the series returns to Perth Motorplex tonight.

Image: Richard Hathaway Photography

A Main results: 1st James McFadden, 2nd Ryan Newton, 3rd Kerry Madsen, 4th Jock Goodyer, 5th Gio Scelzi, 6th Matt Egel, 7th Justin Whittall,  8th Brock Zeafross,  9th Jamie Maiolo, 10th Matt Juhl, 11th Taylor Milling, 12th Jack Williamson, 13th Cory Eliason, 14th Kris Coyle, 15th Dayne Kingshott, 16th Ryan Lancaster, 17th Callum Williamson, 18th Luke Oldfield, 19th Kaiden Manders, 20th Brad Maiolo, 21st Aaron Chircop, 22nd Jaydee Dack, 23rd Myles Bolger. DNF: Andrew Priolo, Michael Keen, Daniel Harding and Brad Sweet.

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