A main winner Max Dumesny and his son Marcus, 11, sport matching smiles after last night's victory.
A PERSISTENT plan to stick to the low line gifted Premier Speedway’s favourite son Max Dumesny a win in the A main on the opening night of the Australian Sprintcar Championship last night.
Six-time national No. 1 Garry Brazier looked to have the A main at his mercy after dashing out to a third-of-a-lap lead in the 20-lap feature.
But while he persisted on the high line, Dumesny charged home in the last three laps to score what had looked like an unlikely win.
“It worked great on the bottom and we were able to make the most of it,” Dumesny said after saluting by just .193 of a second or about a car length.
Grant Anderson was third, with polesitter Carl Dowling fourth and former national champion Brooke Tatnell charging through from 13th on the grid to finish fifth.
Brazier drove past Dumesny after the finish and told him he had got lucky.
“I guarantee that won’t happen tomorrow night,” Brazier said.
“It was just one of those things. “We put it in the bag and look forward to it tomorrow night.”
Former national champion Robbie Farr was sent to the rear off the field only a couple of laps into the A main after an inside passing move failed to pay off and in the aftermath Kelly Linigen, Stephen Bell and Kris Coyle got tangled up in turn four.
The A main was reduced to 20 laps after drivers voted on the change instead of waiting for track maintenance.
Front-row starters dominated the first seven of 14 heats on a wide track, but some minor maintenance led to plenty to action in the second bracket of qualifying events.
The carnage started in heat nine when Trevor Green slowed for a caution light. Phillip Down’s car made some contact with him coming out of turn two and in the backwash West Australian raider Luch Monte finished up tangling with the wall and performing an ugly roll down the back straight.
“I think she’s junk,” Monte said of his car after getting out of the cockpit.
Brazier stormed through from position five to win by about a third of a lap in a stunning display.
“The car felt really good. We got a restart and probably caught Ando (Grant Anderson) out a bit,” Brazier said after swooping through on the inside at a restart after just one lap had been completed.
“My confidence is quite good. We just hope we can get number seven.”
Dumesny and early heat winner Carl Dowling were the major beneficiaries of almost endless drama in heat 12.
Polesitter Warrenne Ekins decided he needed plenty of the track and squeezed Victorian Brett Milburn towards the outside fence. Justin Sloan, Mike Van Bremen and Shaun Dobson all came to grief between turns one and two.
Milburn was angry that he was given no room and nowhere to go, pointing the finger both figuratively and physically at Ekins.
Given the right of reply, Ekins labelled Milburn’s response as childish and said drivers were not out on the track to behave like two-year-olds.
The crowd voiced their overwhelming support of Milburn and it was something of a surprise that Ekins was not sent to the rear of the field for causing the incident.
At the restart, Dumesny sparked his title charge with a win from position seven on the grid and Dowling surged through from the rear to finish second.
That effort was good enough to see Dowling end up as the highest point-scorer for the night and start the A main off pole ahead of Brazier and 2003 Australian champion Kerry Madsen.
Three-time Australian No. 1 Brooke Tatnell won his opening heat but struggled into position 13 in the A main, with current titleholder James McFadden only managing to start off position 16.
The surprise packet of the night was Kelly Linigen starting from position 4 in the A main.
The Australian title will be decided tonight.
