The 2021 season is a wrap for the WA Sporting Car Club with the running of the November Nightmasters on Saturday 13th November with a few state championships coming down to the line.
Open cockpit categories Free Formula, FSR and Formula Vee were joined on track by Sports Sedans and Sports Cars for early qualifying and racing on track at Wanneroo Raceway.
In the FSR WA qualifying, the battle was on between Arise Racings’ Gianni Lutzu and privateer Stewart Burns in the F1000 class. Lutzu put his F1000 on pole ahead of Burns by 1.7432 seconds. Also in the FSR qualifying the Radical class there was a battle of teach and student with BD Soutar-Dawson finishing ahead of youngster Max McRae by 0.3 seconds.
Race 1 ended with Gianni Lutzu again on top of the entire division and class finishing 1.5 seconds clear of BD Soutar-Dawson in the first of the Radicals. Max McRae finished in 12th. For Race 2, a fire was clearly lit in BD Soutar-Dawson with him putting in a masterclass of driving finishing ahead of Jordan Oon in another Radical and Gianni Lutzu in the first of the F1000s. A spin by Stewart Burns saw him finish back in 12th all but sealing the F1000 championship for Lutzu. In the final race Soutar-Dawson continued his driving like a man possessed finishing 7 seconds clear of Adam Lisle and 11 seconds ahead of Gianni Lutzu in the usually faster F1000.
Formula Racing’s museum pieces were on song with a strong field of 15 in qualifying however the heat got the better of many of the older cars with the field dropping to 12 starters by the end of the day. William Norman was the stand out of the day taking pole and two race wins with Martin Bullock taking a race win and two second places for the day.
Formula Vee’s 1600 class saw a battle of Rod Lisson and David Caisley. Lisson took the first notch of the day with pole in qualifying, Caisley returned in the first race with a race win featuring 0.2 seconds ahead of Lisson with Jason Fowler in 3rd. The second race of the day Lisson returned to the stop spot with Caisley in 2nd. Fowler again took out 3rd spot. In the final race of the day, Caisley took out 1st spot, Lisson in 2nd and Franz Esterbauer finishing 3rd for the final race.
Another category to suffer from potentially some heat related issues was the Sports Sedan and Sports Car division with the day starting 11 strong and finishing with only 7 starters and a DNF. Arthur Abrahams well prepared Huracan Super Trofeo. Grant Hill qualified second with Ryan Humfrey and Richard Bloomfield taking up second and third. Race 1 claimed two non starters early with Grant Hill and Glen Brocklehurst both bowing out. Also to eventually join them on the sidelines was Ronald Moller, Brett Niall, Brock Kelly and Daniel Devries. Taking the top steps were Arthur Abrahams, Richard Bloomfield and Ryan Humfrey.
By the time Race 2 started for the Sports Sedan and Sports Cars got underway, Turn 7 was full with spectators and Turn 1 was filling up with the SilviaWA, Weekend Drive Group and a smattering of other car clubs who all made the final round their final stop of their afternoon cruise session sticking around for the rest of the night of racing. The remaining competitors in the Sports Sedan and Sports Car division put on a superb show of racing for the growing crowd with Arthur Abrahams again piloting his Huracan Super Trofeo to first place with Ryan Humfrey’s Ford Falcon XE 8 seconds behind. Ron Moller’s Chevrolet Camaro finished up 3rd overall.
As the sun headed towards the horizon, the Hyundai Excels put on another strong field of 19 cars with Brett Sherriff topping all four sessions of the evening sessions. Harry Douglas and Jake Passaris were having a strong battle for second in the round with them swapping places in the first two races. Harry Douglas unfortunately did not finish the last race of the night.
The Holden HQ Sedans were back again for one of only a few runnings this year due to interrupted race meets earlier in the year. Michael Howlett made it a clean sweep of the night however it wasn’t enough to reign in Michael Woodbridge who took out the state championship on the night finishing 2nd behind Howlett in all races.
Sticking on the Holden note, it wouldn’t be a night for the Holdens in the Saloon Car category with Falcons taking out both classes. Rick Gill finished on top of the points in the PRO class in his AU Falcon, Michael Bond and Vince Ciallella were behind in their Holden Commodores. In the Pro AM class Michael Holdcroft would take a clean sweep of the round with Marc Watkins behind both in EA Falcons. Just Chaffey and newcomer Shane Eather finished equal third with Chaffey the only Holden representative in the top 3.
A combined field rounded out the field for the meet with the Improved Production cars and Street Cars combining to produce a 20 car grid. In the IPC field Tim Riley, Ben Riley, Garry Edwards and Reuben Romkes took out each of their classes for the day. In the Street Cars Drew Watkins was pushing outright winner Paul Kluck hard around the track in the final race of the night. Meanwhile Neil Pollard took the clean sweep of the 2 litre Street Cars class.