Asian Motor Sports

American Brian Brown has registered his biggest win on Australian soil after taking out the $ 10,000 to win Sprintcar show at Rolling Thunder Raceway (RTR) last Tuesday night (January 3) driving the # 21 Cool for Tasmanian car owner Robin Dawkins.

Brown, the nephew of Danny Lasoski, took control of the 25-lap event with 10-laps remaining at the expense of long time leader Max Dumesny, who rolled over whilst negotiating lapped traffic around the 600 metre track.

After starting from pole position by virtue of winning both of his qualifying heat races Dumesny survived an early challenge from Apple Isle hard charger Adrian Redpath over the opening couple laps. When he shook off Redpath, Dumesny came under fire from the likes of Brown, Phil March and Jason Johnson, but none of those drivers were able to find their way into command.

While cutting his way through lapped traffic Dumesny misjudged a pass on a slower car and managed to spin on lap 14, this saw him flip over to the disbelief of the crowd. Although the Dumesny car was only slightly damaged, it was enough to put the # 5 Maxim out for the restart.

With Dumesny on the infield, Brown inherited the lead and headed March and Johnson. A handful of laps later the battle for second between March and Johnson ended in tears when an over ambitious Johnson made contact with March while attempting a pass. This resulted in March spinning and bringing out the yellow lights, as a result for his part in the incident Johnson was sent to the rear of the field for the restart by race officials.

Only a handful of laps after the restart for the March / Johnson incident, American veteran Jimmy Sills stopped on the track with driveline woes aboard the # 75 Jordon Motorsport owned car and retired. For the remainder of the 25-lap journey Brown held on to score a commanding victory and take home a cool $ 10,000 for his efforts.

A hard charging Luch Monte (WA) managed to work his way up to second at the fall of the chequered flag behind Brown after a late charge, while American Daryn Pittman (# 88 Mat Eastham owned J&J) snared third, ahead of Sydneysider Troy Little in fourth, a recovering Johnson, Luke Dillon, Ian Thomsen, Brett Milburn, Northern Territory visitor Mark Grosvenor and veteran Wayne Milburn completed the top 10.

In the latter stages of the feature race the impressive drives from Redpath and March (flat left front tyre) ended on the infield, while Speedcar ace Paul Farrell retired the # 31 Craig Lawless owned Cool on the 16th lap. One of the hot favourites leading into the meeting was American Travis Rilat, but his feature race hopes were dashed when he was forced to retire from the event on the sixth lap due to a broken power steering line and radius rod.

Ex AUSCAR and cameo V8 Supercar competitor Bruce Williams was able to qualify for the feature race in only his fourth show in a Sprintcar and was recorded as an 11th place finisher.

Newcomer Gary Bruce scored victory in the B-main after he defeated Wayne Milburn, Grosvenor and Farrell over a distance of 8 laps.

Heat race wins went to Dumesny (x 2), Redpath, March, Alan Barlee and Little.

SOURCE: I Like Racing