Friday Feb 22, 2019 - James McFadden has clawed back to within 188 points of the QSS World Series Sprintcars lead with an emphatic win at the penultimate round at the Perth Motorplex.

McFadden’s journey to his twentieth World Series career win started by qualifying ninth after Brooke Tatnell claimed his 34th Revolution Racegear Quicktime, with championship combatants, Kerry Madsen and Steve Lines timing second and twelfth respectively.

After some impressive heat racing from all three title hopefuls, Lines advanced from fifth to second in the Shootout to start on the front row with McFadden, while Madsen shared row two with Tatnell, to set the scene for a mouth-watering 35 lap all-star final.

Kye Scroop was the first to bring on the caution lights crunching the turn one wall on lap five, interrupting a phenomenal slide job battle between Lines and Madsen, before Ben Van Ryt retired after a huge shunt in turn one just one lap after the restart.

For the remaining 29 laps to the chequer, McFadden and Lines were mind-blowing through lapped traffic, with McFadden lapping up to sixth, beating Lines to the finish by two seconds, with a surprising ten second delay back to Madsen in third and a much closer single second back to Tatnell in fourth.

“It’s just a shame we aren’t really racing for the championship,” McFadden said. “It was just great to reward the team with a win because they keep giving me a great car but I’ve made some mistakes, but we will come back tomorrow night and see if we can do this again.”

Jason Kendrick proved he was much better than his unimpressive qualifying spot of 23rd, eventually starting the feature from 16th and finishing in 5th to claim the American Racer Hard Charger award.

Lines now has a slender 10 point lead over Madsen with 188 points back to McFadden as the series enters the Grand Final tonight. However, 366 points are available to any racer that can top qualifying, the two heat races and the 35 Lap A-Main, leaving the championship still open to the top three contenders.

RELEASE ENDS

Pic: Aidan Skraha