Asian Motor Sports

American superstar Donny Schatz has sounded another ominous warning leading into next weekends Outlaw’s Down Under III by blitzing the field during round 15 of the Tyrepower Parramatta City Raceway (TPCR) Sprintcar track championship last Saturday night (January 14).

After starting from the second row in the 30-lap feature race, Schatz took control of the lead at half race distance by going passed Australian hopeful Kerry Madsen, who set a cracking pace from a outside front row starting position. Madsen’s downfall was his hesitation in dense lapped traffic, whilst Schatz caught up to Madsen during this period and powered his way into the lead with complete ease.

Once out in front Schatz left his rivals in his wake and at the fall of the chequered flag scored a comfortable victory, despite a stoppage occurring with only two laps remaining, defeating Madsen and Trevor Green in second and third respectively. A hard charging and very impressive Ian Madsen finished fourth ahead of American youngster Brandon Wimmer, Travis Rilat (USA), Joel Knott, Shane Stewart (USA), Adrian Maher and former Australian Micro Sprint champion Mark Richards in 10th.

Despite Schatz scoring another dominating win, his fifth feature race at TPCR this season, there was plenty of carnage with roll over victims being Jason Meyers (USA), Joey Saldana (USA) and Skip Jackson, with the latter two riding out huge wrecks. The first of the red light stoppages occurred with only three laps in the books when Jackson flipped out of the ball park in turn two while battling mid pack on the restart for a spin by Mitchell Dumesny.

Two laps after the Jackson wreck was cleared, Americans Saldana and Stewart were battling for second place when Stewart made contact with Saldana in turn four. This sent Saldana flipping off the track in spectacular fashion in a violent rollover, while Stewart spun out during the contact. Saldana emerged from his car unharmed and stormed back to his trailer a bitterly disappointed man. Stewart was able to restart.

The third and final red light stoppage occurred on lap 28 when second placed at the time Meyers came in contact with a lapped car and flipped over exiting turn two. This set up a two lap dash to the finish, but with a gaggle of lapped cars between leader Schatz and second placed Madsen there was nothing that was going to deny Schatz from victory.

Earlier in the evening, Western Australian Ken Sartori claimed a menacing B-main win by defeating Ian Loudoun, Clayton Hart and veteran Bruce White who gained the final transfer spot into the feature race. Stephen Grassmayr and Sammy Walsh claimed wins in the two C-mains.

In the two dash events that decide who starts where in the first eight rows of the feature race saw convincing wins captured by Stewart (# 1) and Kerry Madsen (# 2).

Heat wins were shared between Saldana, Kerry Madsen, Meyers and Marty Perovich. Unfortunately heat race casualties saw rollovers by Sammy Walsh and Mark Blyton, with the latter jumping into the # 64 Steven Lynch owned Eagle for the C-main.

Ex Australian Litre Sprintcar champion Scott Darley and Luke Pyne won their respective non qualifiers heat races. The second heat of the non qualifiers was marred by Matthew Thomas kissing the outer wall in his # 45 Gambler due to steering failure which caused major front end damage and put him out for the remainder of the night.

Saldana emerged at the top of the tree in qualifying time trials with a best lap of 12.1560 around the 460 metre clayway, with the next best being Kerry Madsen, Schatz, Green, Sartori, Stewart, Wimmer, Rilat, Jackson and Lucas Wolfe (USA), who rounded out the top 10.

TPCR track championship point standings (after 15 completed rounds):
1 Trevor Green - 3262
2 Adrian Maher - 3244
3 Troy Little - 3188
4 Grant Tunks - 3178
5 Ian Loudoun - 3146
6 Mark Blyton - 3142
7 Joel Knott - 3086
8 Mark Richards - 2978
9 Ian Madsen - 2974
10 Martin Lawes - 2962