BERES GETS JUNIOR TITLE

WA driver Harrison Beres made the long trip to Queensland worth it, by racing his way to the SSA Junior Sedan National Title at the Kingaroy Speedway last weekend.

Despite a major scare in the closing stages, Beres overcame Jake Leaman in the 25-lap feature to be the national junior sedans champion.

Beres had a right to fear things were not going to go his way as his team’s tow vehicle blew an engine just 20km out from completing the 4,172km journey from Albany to Kingaroy.

 It was an all West Australian front row, with Beres joining pole sitter Jake Leaman, who were both tied on points and only separated by lap times from the heat races. 

Beres would get the initial jump as the race went green, but Leaman quickly got the nose back in front, while behind them chaos unfolded.

Harrison Beres on his way to victory. Image: 44 Photography

Cars went every which way and James Peacock got the worst of it and was left with nowhere to go and crashed out.

The second attempt at racing was even worse, with a chain reaction seeing at least seven cars piling into the turn one wall, including Poppy Airey who tipped over amongst the mess to bring out the red lights.

Attempt three was only marginally better, with Will Fallon spinning at the opening corner, while take four also saw Brad Marshall clobber the turn two wall.

Thankfully the fifth attempt finally saw some racing with Leaman hitting to the lead with Beres chasing hard.

Jesse Hamon also grabbed third from Ryan Burns on Lap 5 when the field started to spread.

Beres was glued to Leaman’s bumper while Hamon had come on in leaps and bounds, significantly closing the gap on the lead duo.

With 10 to go Leaman and Beres had again split the seam, still battling hard while Hamon was now coming under pressure from Will Fallon, who had passed Burns for fourth.

At this stage the lead duo closed in on lapped traffic, which bunched up the field and set up an exciting finish.

This provided the chance Beres needed, and he grabbed the lead coming out of turn four to have the nose in front by 0.062 seconds on lap 21.

Unfortunately, just as that lap was completed by the rest of the field there was contact with lapped traffic at the front which saw Beres spinning to a stop.

But critically the yellows had come on just prior to that incident as Cruz Carlin slowed to a stop.

This allowed Beres to be back at the front for the resumption with four to go ahead of Leaman and Hamon and it was the slice of luck he needed.

Leaman looked for a way through on the restart, while Hamon was also sticking the nose underneath.

But Beres held strong, and on the penultimate lap he was able to get even further ahead, going on to cross the line in first place ahead of Leaman, Hamon, Fallon, and Burns.

Bradley recovered well after being involved in the opening lap skirmish to finish sixth.

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