Round 3 of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series in collaboration with 2 Days of Thunder and Ipswich Festival of Horsepower was a huge success with racing from dawn all the way into the night.
It wasn’t just the Queensland weather that was hot, the on-track action was scorching and drew in a big crowd across the three days.
Over 5,000 spectators made their way through the gates, with a total of 220 cars entered across the 11 categories. Both made it one of the largest events that QR has held in a decade.
It wasn’t just the state and nation circuit racing action that drew in the crowd, the Hi-Tec Oils Drift All Stars were also in attendance, competing on both Friday and Saturday nights.
As racing went on well into the night, there was a real festival atmosphere around the venue, there was always something to see and do on track.
Off-track, there were many food stalls, and great access to the pits for fans to get up close and personal with the stars and cars.
The circuit racing on Saturday racing went into the darkness, with the final four races taking place in either twilight conditions or at night and made for a real spectacle.
The feature circuit racing category was TA2, and while the racing on Saturday was great, the action on Sunday was some of the best we’ve ever seen.
Josh Haynes took a clean sweep by winning all four races to extend his championship lead, but it was far from easy.
In Race 1 Haynes controlled the race out front, leaving Tom Hayman and Brad Gartner to scrap for second.
However, on the penultimate lap Hayman ground to a halt with a mechanical issue. Gartner therefore finished second ahead of Jarrod Hughes and Graham Cheney.
Race 2 took place in the picturesque twilight conditions on Saturday evening.
As he did in Race 1, Haynes controlled proceedings out front, winning by 1.2s from Gartner, while Cheney held off the onslaught of Hughes by 0.3s to finish in third.
The third encounter will go down in history as a TA2 classic, Haynes won but was attacked left, right and centre from the moment the race started.
A multi-car incident halted proceedings on lap 1, but importantly all drivers jump out their machine’s injury free.
Initially Haynes lost the lead to Cheney, and on the restart was keen to reclaim that position. Cheney made an error under pressure and allowed Haynes, Hughes and Gartner to slide through.
Lap after lap Haynes had to defend the onslaught of both Gartner and Hughes.
On the final lap Gartner went to the outside at Turn 3 and Turn 4 and had his nose in front at Turn 5, but Haynes closed the door.
Haynes took the win from Gartner, Hughes, Cheney and Hayman who came from the back to finish in fifth.
It was another good tussle for the win in the final race with Haynes holding off Gartner and Hughes. Hayman sat third until he was forced to retire with a power steering problem.
It wasn’t just the TA2 cars that put on real good racing, other highlights were the Hyundai Excels, with one race determined by 0.004s.
The pocket-rocket Legend Cars Australia Championship was another, across the five races there were four different winners.
Despite not winning a race, four second place finishes and a fourth was enough for Robert Hogan to win the round. Incredibly Ben Goodridge who finished second for the round, also did not score a win.
Brendon Hourigan won Races 1 and 5. Race 2 saw Shane Tate pip Hogan to the line by a mere 0.01s. Riley Skinner and Scott Melville won the other two affairs.
Australian Super TT,Stock Cars and Trans Am were combined to create thunder around QR.
In SuperTT Tony Saint driving his Mazda RX-7 clean swept the round.
The Invited cars got the better of the Stock Cars with GT veteran Geoff Taunton winning three of the four races and the round in his MARC Mustang. The Trans Am category went the way of John Prefontaine driving a Ford Mustang.
The one-make Mazda RX8 championship – Formula RX8 – was dominated by Brock Paine, he collected the maximum points haul by claiming pole and all four wins.
The nations best Excel drivers descended on QR with a field of 29 for the Australian Series.
Matthew Boylett clean swept the weekend, but it was that simple, the highlight was the Race 3 photo finish in which Boylett beat Kade Davey to the finish line by an almost immeasurable 0.004s. Boylett won the round from Caleb Paterson and Toby Waghorn.
Replicas Tourers went the way of John Robinson, the Race 2 winner was the most consistent in his Holden Commodore and was rewarded with the round win.
Peter Bray won three of the four Queensland Touring Car races, enough to take the round victory.
In the Queensland Production cars former Bathurst 6 Hour winner Beric Lynton was in a class of his own dominating all three encounters driving his BMW M3.
Daniel Studderd scored a clean sweep of wins in Production Sports Cars.
The next round of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series takes place at the Shell-V Power Motorsport Park in South Australia from August 30-September 1.
