EMILY Duggan has taken out a hotly-contested one-hour Series X3 NSW endurance race for Hyundai Excel race cars, the headline act at Wakefield Park yesterday, coming out on top in a tight contest with Adam Bryant which lasted the entire race.
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Duggan held second for the opening stages of the race, and pounced on her rival when he was briefly delayed by a lapped car.
For spectators, the most spectacular incident of the race involved Kerry Janssen, who rolled his Excel at Turn 1 after tangling with another competitor.
Fortunately Janssen was unharmed, but the incident necessitated a lengthy Safety Car for the damaged car to be recovered.
The race restarted with just three laps remaining and Duggan resisted pressure from Bryant to take the win by just 0.4s, with the entry of Tom Muller/Nick Filipetto finishing in third.
“When I crossed the finish line, I couldn’t believe what had just happened, it was an amazing feeling,” Duggan said.
“The emotions kicked in straight away, I wanted this race win so badly and it was just a massive wave of happiness to have achieved it.”
The Excel endurance race was supported by a number of other categories, of which the Stock Cars were a clear favourite amongst the fans.
For the first time, the category included the brand-new TA2 cars which kept the crowd entertained with their Americaninspired bodyshells and throaty V8 engines. Queenslander Peter Robinson (Camaro TA2 car) prevailed after a tight battle with Michael Coulter (Oz Truck) for most of the weekend; a mechanical problem for Coulter in the trophy race enabled Robinson to drive to an unchallenged race victory ahead of Hugh McAlister (Oz Truck) and Cameron Sendall (Mustang TA2 car).
“The TA2 car handled the Wakefield Park track magnificently, and I’m very happy to be taking the trophy home to Queensland,” Robinson said.
Following their recent relocation to Goulburn, the Legend Cars also put on a great show with Kyle Angel bouncing back from adversity to win the trophy race.
Angel’s primary car blew an engine in the first race, but he swapped into a spare car and drove through the field in the remaining races to take the win ahead of Mick Hebditch and Greg Davis.
In the Miniature Race Car Series for Future Racers and Aussie Racing Cars, Chad Cotton won the trophy race from Jake Klein and Matt Thewlis.
In the Australian Pulsar Racing Association Series, Jaie Robson and Dimitri Agathos looked set to resume their battles from the last couple of rounds after qualifying first and second.
However, a blown coolant hose for Robson triggered a disastrous chain of events on the first lap of the opening race – coolant leaked onto his back tyres, causing him to spin at turn 3 where he was collected by Phil Alexander, causing significant damage to the rear end of his car and ruining his weekend.
Agathos capitalised to win Race 1, but an impressive Matt Boylan broke through for his maiden race win in Race 2, and backed up with two more victories in Race 3 and the trophy race, which he won ahead of Josh Heath and James Keene.
Mini specialist John Walker looked set to dominate the East Coast Mini Challenge races after winning Races 1 and 2, but Charlie Borg gained the ascendancy in Race 3 and also claimed the trophy race from Walker and Linda Devlin, who had recovered from brake problems earlier in the weekend.
The next major race meeting at Wakefield Park is the CAMS NSW State Championship round on August 20-21.
