WA Excel Cup Well done to our friends in the West for a well run enduro weekend !
Well done also to the winners including local gun for hire, Thomas Andreas Benford who co-drove the winning car!
Who is keen to see an endurance event on the SA calendar ?
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Race Report.
Excel Cup WA100 Enduro event, 13/14 July 2019
After a weekend of excitement and action the WA Excel Cup group will take a while to come back down to normal. The category hosted its first standalone Enduro event with invited drivers this past weekend.
The weekend started with Friday practice with 7 co-drivers from interstate Excel racing associations, 10 from other WA categories and 2 previous State Excel Champions returning to the category for the event. The Co-drivers got used to the cars and the track while the existing drivers made the most of the feedback from other drivers in their cars to make set-up changes.
Saturday morning started with a 10-minute practice session followed by a 20-minute qualifying session. Most drivers set new PB times in these sessions. With all drivers pushing for their best times a trend developed that would continue over the weekend as a number of cars exceeded track limits at turn 7 after going too deep under brakes, with some fast-qualifying laps being excluded due to exceeding track limits. After the session was over the usual suspects had qualified at the front. Qualifying results were;
1 - Car 71 G. Dicker / K Nielsen
2 - Car 56 R.Landsmeer/W.Milburn
3 - Car 33 M.Harvey/C.Harvey
The cars lined up for the first of 3 sprint races on Saturday afternoon, as the race got under way gear selection issues plagued the pole sitting #71 car, and as Dicker pulled off track the field got away to a clean start as Milburn in Car 56 led Mitic in Car 53 up the hill for the first time. On Lap 2 Mitic made the move and took the lead where he would stay for the rest of the race. On Lap 3 Benford in #22, B Sharpe in #32 and Bailey in Car #14 tried to go 3 wide up the hill through turn 3, this rarely ends well and car 14 came off third best as contact spun the car and forced Bailey off-track. The race was largely trouble free after this with Mitic coming home ahead of Milburn with young Mason Harvey in third. Just behind McGregor in Car 2, Smart in Car 9 and Benford in car 22 made steady progress up the field from their qualifying positions.
Saturday night bought about an Engine and gearbox change in the #71 car of Dicker/Neilsen and a new engine for the Aitken/Sharpe car # 6.
Sunday morning bought the field back out for a warmup session which resulted in the stewards calling the drivers to a meeting to remind them about the turn 7 track limits after a number of indiscretions were noted during the warmup.
The second sprint race on Sunday morning once again saw the #53 car of Hill, #56 car of Landsmeer and #33 Car of Harvey fight it out at the front of the field. At the chequered flag Landsmeer prevailed in front of Harvey then Hill. Grant Gellan in the Malkin Motorsport car #77 moved up the grid, Carlos Ambrosio in the #14 and Karl Neilsen in the #71 recovered their cars up the field well after their race 1 troubles.
With the point score of the first 2 races setting the grid for race 3 the front row of the starting grid had a familiar feel with Wayne Milburn starting car #56 off pole, Dean Hill Starting #53 off the outside of the front row and Mason Harvey and Cooper Smart off Row 2 with Gellan and Benford off Row 3. When the light went green Hill got the jump on Milburn into the first corner and Benford made a blinder of a start to take car 22 from 6th into 3rd place through the first corner. A good start from Brock McGregor saw him go around the outside of a slow starting Harvey at turn 1 but unfortunate contact saw Brock pushed wide into the dirt which saw him fall to the rear of the field by the time he returned to the circuit. The rest of the race was trouble free with Milburn bringing it home in 1st place, Hill 2nd and Harvey 3rd.
With the drivers from race 3 starting the 40 lap Enduro race and the cars in the finishing order from race 3 the action was set to continue from the first lap of the Enduro. The rolling start was clean and everyone gave each other racing room as the field went through turn 1 and up the hill for the first time with Milburn in front, Harvey getting in front of Hill through turn 4, Benford in 4th, Gellan in 5th and Bailey in 6th. The field settled itself down with the front 3 making a break on the field while Brock McGregor moved Car # 2 up a number of spots recovering from his race 3 misfortune.
10 laps in and the front 3 had settled in with Milburn leading from Harvey and Hill. McGregor had car #2 into 4th ahead of Benford in car 22 and Neilsen in car 71. The race stayed steady until at the end of lap 14 Milburn went deep into the dirt at Turn 7 after contact with Harvey in Car 33. The ensuing Safety car had the field scrambling into the pits for the compulsory driver change ahead of their planned pitstops. 3 laps under safety car went by before car 56 was recovered from the turn 7 sand trap which ended their chances of a trophy.
By the halfway mark of Lap 20 the chaos of the pit stops had settled, the lead cars had found their way free of lapped cars and the field was getting spread out, Nick Mitic was leading after taking over car 53 from Dean Hill, Quick pit stop strategy had moved Brandon Sharpe into second place after taking over from Luke Crutchley and Clint Harvey was in third. Greg Dicker had car 71 in 4th, Ryan McNess had car 22 in 5th and Brock Gilbin was circulating car 164 in 6th place.
The next 10 laps saw Dicker move car 71 up to a battle for second place with Clint Harvey, McNess had closed in on the 4th place car of Brandon Sharpe and Malkin had settled into 6th place in car #77. As Lap 31 unfolded with a quarter of the race distance to go McNess, who had passed and opened a gap on car 32, inherited 3rd place as Greg Dicker and Car 71 retired with a failed wheel bearing. 4 laps later Geoff Duckworth beached car 162 in the sand at turn 1 which bought the safety car out for a second time.
As the safety car circulated, the field was bunched up with a number of lapped cars in the mix with the top 5 cars still on the lead lap. Mitic was leading the pack in car 53, 3 lapped cars separated him from Harvey in car 33, a further 7 lapped cars separated Harvey from McNess in car 22, B. Sharpe in Car 32 Car 77 with Malkin behind the wheel.
Coming up for the restart it was all to play for as Car 53 had a 5 second penalty applied for exceeding track limits earlier in the race and car 33 a 15 second penalty for the incident on lap 14. With the field bunched up this effectively put McNess in the lead of the race with lapped cars to negotiate ahead and cars 32 and 77 directly behind.
As the restart approached for a 3 lap dash to the flag Mitic would need to make use of a clear track to open up the gap to regain the effective lead, while McNess, Sharpe and Malkin would have to negotiate the lapped cars and race each other to the end while attempting stay within 5 seconds of Mitic.
As the safety car pulled off and the race resumed Mitic fought to clear himself of lapped traffic and McNess, Sharpe and Malkin started negotiating the lapped traffic ahead of them. Unfortunately, the race wouldn’t last one more lap with a turn 7 incident resulting in a red flag finish and results declared on the position of the cars at the lap 37 restart.
The Final results ended up as
1st Place Ryan McNess (WA) and Tom Benford (SA)
2nd Place Dean Hill (WA) and Nick Mitic (WA)
3rd Place Luke Crutchley (WA) and Brandon Sharpe (WA)
In addition, a fourth trophy for the Hard Charger Award (Most places made up during the 40 lap race) was awarded to Car 21 of Darren Seaton and Isi Ambrosio who made up 8 positions from their starting grid slot.
The WA Excel Cup Association would like to thank the WASCC for supporting the event, all officials, all the guest co-drivers from other categories and interstate and also Travis Barnes for allowing use of his photos in this post, please look up Travis’s gallery of high quality professional photo’s and support his efforts by buying some photo’s of the cars you love. ... See more
