Price & Raymont Successful In Tasmania
17/03/10…Pam Franz
Attention turned to the Bendigo Bank Arena La Trobe Speedway in Devonport Tasmania when 52 Modified Production drivers from all over Australia converged together for the running of the National Modified Production Title for 2010. 12 drivers from Qld were present amongst the field.
Right from the Practice session on Thursday night it was obvious it was to be a weekend of high stress for many drivers. Todd Doyle was devastated when he suffered an engine failure during a Practice run – on further investigation it was found to be beyond repair and Todd’s weekend was over. Steve Price found the fence at the finish of the Practice session at the start/finish line when a steering component failed causing a great deal of damage to the Cortina. Aidan Raymont was happy with his performance during practice but was looking for more and determined to find it made a diff and gearbox change before racing began on Friday. The MacDonald boys – Shane and Nathan – were very fast during practice and looked to be on the money. Townsville entrant Ross Bullimore in the Mazda RX7 had an expensive engine failure during practice which gave the crew a great deal of work to do on Friday to be able to continue. Glenn Pagel had a dream run during Practice looked to be ready to take all contenders on. Dale Grotherr suffering from bronchitis had a trouble free practice session. Darryl Etherden continued his run of bad luck with problems. Ashley Barron looked quick during his trouble free practice session.
The lap record for the track was broken 41 times during the Practice session with 40 cars being within 1 second of the fastest lap time. NSW’s Greg Worling set a blistering pace of 15.567 during Practice.
After 4 rounds of torrid racing Victoria’s Andrew Blackwell was highest point scorer with just one point more than Qld’s Steve Price. Blackwell exercised the option to choose to start from Position 2 putting Price on Pole Position for the 40 lap A Main. Shane and Nathan MacDonald and Aidan Raymont were all in the top handful of cars ensuring that it was going to be an awesome spectacle for all to watch. Unfortunately the opening lap took several restarts before it was completed and by this time numerous drivers were spectating from the infield – only a field of 13 cars remained to battle out the 40 laps. \
Blackwell was able to steak away from the field in the early stages and barring mishap his winning never looked in doubt, Blackwell continued to drive a faultless race whilst the battle behind was going on. Steve Price and Aidan Raymont drove closely for several laps with either one likely to take second spot until Raymont suddenly dropped back and happily filled 3rd place. After the race it was revealed that Raymont lost power steering in the opening stages of the race and battled the remainder of the race without the assistance of power steering coming home in galant 3rd place behind Steve Price in 2nd. After such a trying time in the Practice session Price was able to complete the 40 laps with no mechanical problems. During this Shane MacDonald was able to bring his VS Commodore home in 5th place behind Greg Worling in 4th.
Full results and lap times can be found on www.mylaps.com