A MASSIVE crowd was on hand for the return of racing at the Southern 500 Speedway on Saturday night.
And they didn’t go home disappointed with almost six hours of racing – and plenty of laughs with the Anton Domburg Memorial Caravan Race providing the usual carnage and a big clean-up job for club volunteers.
“It was a great night of quality racing,” Southern 500 Speedway president Darren Pumpa said.
“We had close to 100 cars in the pits, which is more than we expected we would get, but we were able to push the races through and we got the caravan race started at about 11.15pm, which was a good effort.”
That was helped by a relatively clean night of racing with the club’s newly widened track proving to be a winner.
The track, along with safety walls and fencing, were overhauled during the club’s 22-month layoff from racing.
“We have had a lot of upgrades since we last raced, mostly safety upgrades, and the track now has a lot of room on it.
“We have a much better facility now, and all the feedback we got from the drivers was very positive.
“Those upgrades and word of mouth will hopefully allow us to attract more interest and a better field of cars in the future.”
And it wasn’t just the drivers who had a good night, with the big crowd appreciating the return of racing.
“The crowd were well behaved and well turned out,” Pumpa said.
“A lot of work goes into running the night with all our volunteers, it was an amazing effort.”
The caravan race attracted eight entries and there was carnage by the first turn, before eventually Luke Dart was crowned the winner ahead of Pete Leonard and Nathan Hutchins.
“I’m not sure anyone cares who wins the caravan race, it’s all a bit of fun, but the winner is the driver deemed to have put on the most exciting performance.”
Racing returns to the Southern 500 Speedway on February 12 when the club hosts the Victorian Title for modified sedans.
“We’ll have some Portland members involved in that, and there will be plenty of other racing with the standard saloons and street stocks returning, as well as the vintage sedans.”
Standard saloons
Melbourne’s Wayne Sheerman was able to hit the lead early in the 15-lap standard saloon final, and was never headed thereafter.
Portland’s Matt Domburg did well to recover after copping a tap in the opening lap that sent him almost sideways, but while he was sorting out that drama Sheerman was able to put a gap on the field and he went on to win by almost half a lap, with Matt Domburg second and Paul Domburg (Portland) third.
A strong of Portlanders followed, with Nathan Hutchins fourth, Chris Carvill fifth and Greg Hutchins sixth.
Street stocks
Seven-time Victorian title winner, Mount Gambier’s Anthony Beare, led from flag to flag in the 15-lap street stock final.
While Hamilton’s Jye Irving was hot on his tail for most of the race, Beare made no mistakes and was able get through the lapped racers comfortably.
In what was an incident-free race, Beare was 2.2 seconds clear of Irving at the checkered flag, with Melbourne’s Tyler Barton third.
Jordan Ellifson was the best of the Portland drivers, finishing in fifth, just ahead of clubmate Hannah Domburg.
Junior Formula 500
Zoe Pearce was all class in the Junior Formula 500 final, leading from start to finish.
Tyler Maggs was second and Cooper Normal third.
The win also gave Pearce victory in the Junior Speedweek series, having also won at Avalon on Thursday night.
Formula 500
Portland was the fourth and final round of the Formula 500 Speedweek, with the drivers having already completed rounds at Simpson (December 27), Laang (December 28) and Hamilton (December 29).
Portland’s Angus Hollis was among the 41 entries for the Portland leg, and after preliminary rounds found himself in the B Main final.
With the top eight drivers from the B Main to progress to the A Main, the aim was to be at the pointy end of the race and stay out of trouble.
And while Hollis was able to do that – hitting the lead on the opening lap and maintaining that position until dropping back to second, behind Jake Hosie, a lap from the end – there was plenty of drama for other racers along the way, with several drivers finding trouble and forcing a number of restarts.
That put Hollis into the Main A final, starting in 14th position of the 20-lap final.
And just like the B Main, the A Main also had plenty of drama with only 14 of the 20 cars reaching the finish line.
Hollis was one of those casualties with just six laps completed because of a mechanical failure.
Jac Laneyrie, who had qualified first, was in control of the race throughout however a restart with three laps left put the pressure on with the field brought back up to his tail. Laneyrie was able to keep calm under the pressure to score the win.
