Slated “The greatest Aussie speedway race you’ve never heard of” by The Race Torque, the Alexandra Speedway 3 Hour Enduro & Crash N Bash was a wild success.
Alexandra Speedway held their annual winter racing attraction, the 3 Hour Enduro, this past weekend with just over thirty-two driver, two car teams out to complete as many laps as possible and be ahead of everybody else when the chequered flag concluded the event. For the second year in a role Northern Suburbs based racers Shane O’Brien and Lennie Bonnici claimed the prized trophies and the winner’s cash when they chased down and passed Warrick Taylor and Dylan Barrow, the later whom flew back in from the United States the night before having been competing in America.
Also competing was the Crash and Bash Association of Victoria with two events to get their new race season started. The Mick Corbett Memorial for the Open Crash and Bash and the first round for season points for the Ladies Crash and Bash. The same car won both with Brad Warren from Longwarry winning the Opens and Kellie Latham from the Eastern Suburbs and a support of Brad’s racing, winning the Ladies.
Latham won both heat races in a small yet determined field of competitors. The balancing of the race program to make sure the cars the Ladies were competing in had enough time to be fixed if required and handed back to their Open Crash and Bash racers meant it would be fair to say the Ladies had the toughest of conditions early in the program. Latham set a new eight lap record around the dog-leg course in the first heat race with a huge win and won again by a large margin in heat two. In the ten-lap final, Latham once again set a record and led every lap to win by fourteen seconds from Erin Brown, Danni Marshall, Sam Robinson, and Romney Stirling. The feature race provided a little bit of crashing with Stirling collecting the retaining wall on the off the track.
Kellie was thrilled with her victory. “We love competing at Alexandra, and although it was tough conditions for us, we all still had an absolute ball. I want to thank Brad for always providing a great set up on his car for us to use, my husband Leigh and family and the guys that help on race day. I also want to thank the association for all the work to get the class back up and running after a tough season last year.”
In the Open Crash and Bash, who incidentally use the same specifications as the Ladies do and is called open because of being open to either gender, Nathan Taylor, Brad Warren, the Robinson boys, and the Leeson boys were the standup racers.
Four heats were contested with Natha Taylor winning the first of them by over eighteen seconds ahead of Zac Leeson, Jackson Barneveld, James Carden-David, and Chris Leeson. Taylor led every lap on his way to the win. Brad Warren then won the second heat race with a record ten lap time. This was the first time the class had competed over ten laps through the dogleg. Warren scorched the circuit at around 1.5 seconds per lap quicker than Taylor ran in the heat prior as he defeated Clint Robinson by three seconds with Mark Hebblethwaite, Glen Robinson, and William Leeson.
In the third heat race Taylor again claimed the victory this time he drove from eighth to first by lap five. He motored to a thirteen second margin and defeated Hebblethwaite, Warren, Mark Taylor a former winner of the event, and Glen Robinson. In the final qualifying race Taylor again claimed the win and once again started in eighth spot, this time reaching the front of the field by the last lap. With just 1.5 seconds between himself and Hebblethwaite, Chris Leeson finished in third then Glen and Clint Robinson rounded out the top five.
Over twenty-six laps in a shortened race Taylor did not have things go his way in the final despite dominating the qualifying. Warren led every lap on his way to lapping everybody in the field up to second place. The margin between Warren and eighth placed starter Robinson who was almost lapped, was almost thirty-five seconds. William Leeson finished in third, Logan Mair in fourth and Chris Leeson in fifth with two thirds of the field non-finishers.
Teams in the 3 Hour Enduro each had one heat race each driver to contribute towards the qualifying points determining their tarting position in the final. The team of Dylan Barrow and Warrick Taylor had a win each to claim pole position setting a ten-lap record through the course in their second heat race. Alexandra club members Robert Garlick from Badgers Creek and David Donegan of Healesville had a win, Father and son Frank and Travis Ramsdale from Pakenham won a heat race, as did Nathan O’Brien and his teammate Josh Barber, whilst the last winners were Lee Beach of Lysterfield and Lenny Bates from Western Australia although a long time Eastern Suburbs based racer.
Racers then set about the 3-hour Enduro, and an entertaining start with the Caleb and Corey Lincoln combination losing a wheel before the race really got going and the team of Stuart Robinson and Aaron Bunton tried to exit the track out the open back gate and managed to crash into it! The race settled with the Barrow/Taylor combination leading to the fifty-lap mark of the race in the first half an hour, before they were the first of the front running teams to pit. This sent the team way down the leader’s board whilst others capitalised with Pakenham brothers Damien and Brendan Miller leading, then brother in laws Shane O’Brien and Lennie Bonnici, before great mates Daniel Unternahrer and Josh Service held the lead.
There were numerous flat tyres during the race with cars limping off to the pit enclosure hoping to tag in a ready to go team mate to continue their race. In the second half of the race Barrow and Taylor claimed the lead once again after working their way through almost twenty other teams. They set a scorching pace with a big lead before cautions tore their race apart bringing O’ Brien and Bonnici whom had taken advantage of their pit strategies to come up roses at the end of the race, running down the leaders and dashing out to a six second margin when the chequered flag unfurled.
A back-to-back victory to the O’Brien/Bonnici combination in the Enduro, to add to the four one hundred Lap Derby wins that Bonnici has under his belt further cements the family as the current kings of the endurance racing scene in Victoria. They completed 274 laps to defeat Barrow/Taylor, the Millers of the host club, Shane’s brother Nathan and mate Josh Barber and another Alexandra member combination Luke Fallon and Steve Kershaw. Fifteen teams finished the race out of the thirty-two starting teams.
After the race media caught up with Lennie Bonnici. “We put a lot of effort into our racing, and we have strategies and a great family team around us to make sure every piece works. We love endurance racing at our home track Nagambie and here at Alexandra and it is fantastic to race and win with my brother-in-law Shane. Thank you to all our supporters and congratulations to the other place runners on their efforts.”
Alexandra now will prepare its venue for the start on the 24/25 season of Speedway course racing beginning in the middle of spring.
Article: Alexandra Speedway
