Racing returned to the Murray Machining and Sheds Murray Bridge Speedway on Saturday night (October 29) with Round 3 of the Ausloans Finance Strathalbyn Track Championship featuring six racing classes with the main events being the V6 Sprints Zeke Agars Classic, the Blackjack Speedcar Series and Wingless Sprints.

The Zeke Agars Classic is one of the “Triple Crown” V6 Sprints events of the season with 10 cars fronting for action but unfortunately the field was quickly reduced to 8 with a multi car accident in turn 1 of the opening heat. Chris Quinlan slammed the wall hard ending his night while Renee Pfeiler would also be forced out. The accident resulted in a lengthy delay with the heat being re-run later in the night.

When the V6 Sprints returned it was a Nick Hall benefit race as he remained undefeated all night and won the 15-lap final by over 6 seconds. John Pfeiler was the best of the rest as he finished second ahead of Jordan Grillet, Kym Simon, Archie Fabien, Nathan Johns and Brenton Phillips.

The biggest field of Wingless Sprints ever seen at a club event at Murray Bridge contested Round 3 of the Track Championship with 36 drivers in attendance. The heats were action packed with 12 car heats with heat wins going the way of Jack McCarthy (2), Kirby Hillyer, Nate Trewin, Ryan Alexander and Tyson Martin.

After winning his two heat races McCarthy continued his winning form as he led all 25-laps in the final to back up his win from a week prior at Renmark. Second place went to Tyson Martin, who chased McCarthy for the entire race distance, with Ryan Alexander having a strong run to finish third. Mount Gambier’s Mitch Broome, Nate Trewin, Rylan Furler, Darryl Knuckey, Keke Falland, who came out of the B-main, William Caruso and Jordon Bolitho completed the top 10.

Throughout the night there were a number of incidents including Ross Miller, who rolled his #24 machine in heat four in turn two while Harley Alexander rode out a car destroying wreck in turn three after tagging the wall in the A-main. At the time Alexander was charging hard challenging Mitch Broome for fourth with 10 laps remaining.

The Speedcars saw a field of 8 cars in the pit area for the opening round of the Blackjack Series with drivers from four states. The local contingent comprised of four entries including Jack McCarthy and Brendan Zadow, who were both making their competition debut.

The opening heat of the night would see Victorian Nick Parker take the win ahead of Robert Heard and McCarthy while heat two was taken out by Dillon Ghent over Parker and Heard in what was without doubt the race of the night. The 20-lap final would see Parker continue on his winning way as he crossed the line ahead of Ghent, McCarthy, Heard, Brayden Willmington (NSW), Garth Thompson (NT) and Zadow. The Speedcars will return to the track on November 19.

The second round of the State Series for Formula 500’s saw plenty of action from the 9 drivers who took to the track with Bordertown’s Patrick Merrett taking a surprise win. In all Merrett only led 1 lap but it was the one that counted as he edged out Corey Jones by 0.031 of a second. Third place went to Richard Schmidt who was leading until the final lap when he suffered a front-end failure but he was still able to limp home. Brendan Zadow appeared to be on his way to a convincing win until he rode out a big crash in turn two on lap seven after he made contact attempting to lap the slower car of Ryan Harry.

In the remaining events Mildura’s Darren McCarthy dominated the small field of AMCA Nationals while Lucas Warnett defeated Lachlan Brown and Cameron Smith in the Junior Sedan Top Stars and Summer Gesell was victorious over Evan McAllister and Ryan Burns in the New Stars.

The Speedway action will continue this Saturday night (November 5) with Sprintcars, Wingless Sprints, the SA Modified Sedans Series, Super Sedans, Street Stocks, AMCA’s and Junior Sedans. Currently the Sprintcar nomination list includes the likes of dual Australian Champion David Murcott, Luke Dillon, Matt Egel, Ryan Jones, Daniel Pestka, Hayden Pitt, Steven Caruso and young Victorian Todd Hobson.

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