Austrailian Sprints: Green Means Go
1 March 1998
(BUNBURY, WA - ) .. Adelaide's Trevor Green heads the 42-car field following the opening night of preliminary qualifying for the 36th Australian Sprintcar Championship at the Bunbury City & Regional Raceway. The 28-year old Adrad Performance Radiators/Freightmaster-J&J driver is however worried by a vibration which progressively grew worse throughout the succession of time trials and three heats each per driver."We sat down before the night started and decided upon our strategy," explained Green. "I didn't want to run a wide open time trial with the way the format has been devised but, to be honest, I didn't think I'd end up only 17th quickest. During my last two heats the motor developed a vibration which grew worse to where I had my fingers and toes crossed that it would hang on until we can look at it tomorrow. You try not to look too far ahead but I'm quietly pleased and confident - but wary at the same time."
Motor problems proved to be a common complaint around the wide open 540 metre oval, fastest qualifier Kerry Madsen suffering the misfortune of seeing two powerplants succumb to the hot pace. The Huntley's Your Money Weekly-Grizzly set quickest time on the first of two scheduled timed laps before melting a piston. A replacement was leased and installed after dropping a heat - only for an unrelated failure. "I think I proved I was the fastest guy here but didn't have any luck on our side," said an obviously disappointed youngster.
"I haven't given up, we are still not out of this yet as I've got a new piston coming down overnight to Bunbury where hopefully we can rebuild my motor. If the track goes slick like it did later tonight, I can start a little bit back but get on a roll," Madsen said optimistically. "Maybe we still have a shot at winning."
Brooke Tatnell appeared set to join Green atop the points table until he withdrew from his final preliminary after driveline failure in the Shell Helix/Phantom Comics- Schnee. The resultant points loss dropped Brooke to seventh overall behind Green, Gavin Migro, Robert Farr, Ron Krikke, Garry Rush and Max Dumesny.
"We were looking pretty good until the driveline cooked and broke the universal joint and titanium yoke," explained Tatnell. "They were brand new parts which let us down. Up until then I had been taking it easy making sure I finished in the top three and avoided all the accidents and crashes which were happening around us. Tomorrow I won't be as conservative," warned Brooke.
Migro was both elated and surprised to run second on points having run a limited (six meetings) campaign this summer in his Rally Revegitation/Speed Torque/No Fear-Jenkins. "Naturally I'm happy as we appear certain to make the 35-lap championship final," confessed the 30-year old. "I'm pleased for the boys who got the car set-up pretty close to perfect while I struggled a bit with my arms 'pumping up' with such a lack of racing."
Local crowd favourite Krikke was in a determined mood, describing his hunger to win a third national title as, "We worked hard for what we got," said Ron. "We knew what we wanted to do with the Performance Direct/AMCAP BBK-Maxim as we come from here. It is really special to us being our home track but this one is for the boys," said an emotional Krikke in reference to his late son Darryl and nephew Jason who were killed in a road accident less than 12 months ago.
NASCAR ace Dumesny described his night's exploits in the Valvoline/No Fear-J&J as, "ordinary. I didn't get going fast enough until my last heat race." Meanwhile a crestfallen Chas Calandro, third on points entering the third round of heats, was forced to withdraw his Castrol-Maxim from the meeting after breaking a camshaft. "It is sad but at least we've shown people the difference since we were here last November."
Pre-meeting favourite Skip Jackson suffered from accident damage in his opening encounter but, following a rare spin, electrified the substantial crowd by screaming from the rear to third in his final heat race to finish 15th on points, just ahead of WA champion Mark Wells.
A further round of four more preliminary heats tomorrow will determine contestants for the C, B and A-Feature events with a top-eight Pole Shuffle setting the first four rows of the 35-lap championship final.
36th Australian Sprintcar Championship
Saturday, February 28, 1998
Time Trials : 1. Kerry Madsen (NSW #29) 14.54, 2. Garry Rush (NSW #2) 14.63, 3. Brooke Tatnell (NSW #8) 14.66, 4. Skip Hackson (NSW #7) 14.70, 5. Phil March (SA #3) 14.75, 6. Chas Calandro (SA #33) 14.75, 7. Andrew Scheuerle (QLD #95) 14.76, 8. Dean McComb (QLD #36) 14.79, 9. Ray Geneve (WA #4) 14.80, 10. Gavin Migro (WA #7) 14.80, 11. Alan Haynes (WA #66) 14.82, 12. Ron Krikke (WA #95) 14.83, 13. Shane Krikke (WA #2) 14.85, 14. Ant Kinley (WA #45) 14.90, 15. Scott Milling (WA #25) 14.92, 16. Max Dumesny (VIC #5) 14.93, 17. Mark Wells (WA #92) 14.93, 18. Trevor Green (SA #4) 14.98, 19. John Krikke (WA #46) 14.98, 20. Robert Farr (NSW #42) 14.99, 21. Shane Marden (WA #10) 15.02, 22. Pino Priolo (WA #8) 15.06, 23. Shane Murphy (WA #11) 15.08, 24. Jamie Maiolo (WA #99) 15.17, 25. Ryan Farrell (WA #29) 15.22, 26. Wayne Skipper (NSW #24), 15.24, 27. Peter Attard (NSW #53) 15.24, 28. David Anderson (VIC #37) 15.28, 29. Lynton Jeffrey (NSW #99) 15.28, 30. Eddy Gobby (WA #32) 15.28, 31. Terry Cutts (WA #16) 15.29, 32. Sharon Marriott (WA #75) 15.33, 33. Adrian Maher (NSW #80) 15.35, 34. Geoff West (WA #24) 15.41, 35. Paul Stubber (WA #31) 15.51, 36. Kelly Linigen (NSW #25) 15.53, 37. Garry Sartori (WA #41) 15.56, 38. Brad Blake (WA #70) 15.60, 39. Steve Knight (VIC #24) 15.95, 40. Jamie Moon (WA #71) 16.04, 41. Peter Knight (VIC #14) 16.19, 42. Adrian Winterswyk (WA #37) 16.57
Preliminary Qualifying Heats (12 laps) :
Heat 1 : 1. Mark Wells, 2. Shane Marden, 3. Shane Krikke, 4. Phil March, 5. Ryan Farrell, 6. Lynton Jeffrey, 7. Garry Sartori, 8. Peter Knight
Heat 2 : 1. Trevor Green, 2. Gavin Migro, 3. Chas Calandro, 4. Garry Rush, 5. Eddy Gobby, 6. Brad Blake, 7. Wayne Skipper, 8. Geoff West, 9. Pino Priolo
Heat 3 : 1. Shane Murphy, 2. Scott Milling, 3. Brooke Tatnell, 4. John Krikke, 5. Terry Cutts, 6. Steve Knight, 7. Alan Haynes, 8. Paul Stubber
Heat 4 : 1. Robert Farr, 2. Max Dumesny, 3. Ron Krikke, 4. David Anderson, 5. Dean McComb, 6. Sharon Marriott, 7. Skip Jackson, 8. Kelly Linigen
Heat 5 : 1. Gavin Migro, 2. Trevor Green, 3. Shane Marden, 4. Ryan Farrell, 5. Shane Krikke, 6. Garry Rush, 7. Adrian Maher, 8. Phil March, 9. Brad Blake, 10. Peter Knight
Heat 6 : 1. Pino Priolo, 2. Chas Calandro, 3. Kerry Madsen, 4. Mark Wells, 5. Wayne Skipper, 6. Garry Sartori, 7. Adrian Winterswyk, 8. Geoff West
Heat 7 : 1. Shane Murphy, 2. Robert Farr, 3. Ron Krikke, 4. Skip Jackson, 5. Andrew Scheuerle, 6. Mike Figliomeni, 7. Peter Attard, 8. Scott Milling
Heat 8 : 1. John Krikke, 2. Brooke Tatnell, 3. Max Dumesny, 4. Terry Cutts, 5. Kelly Linigen, 6. Steve Knight
Heat 9 : 1. Pino Priolo, 2. Phil March, 3. Shane Marden, 4. Ryan Farrell, 5. Shane Krikke, 6. Adrian Maher, 7. Wayne Skipper, 8. Geoff West, 9. Peter Knight
Heat 10 : 1. Trevor Green, 2. Garry Rush, 3. Gavin Migro, 4. Lynton Jeffrey, 5. Garry Sartori, 6. Brad Blake, 7. Mark Wells, 8. Eddy Gobby
Heat 11 : 1. Jamie Maiolo, 2. Scott Milling, 3. Max Dumesny, 4. Andrew Scheuerle, 5. Dean McComb, 6. Peter Attard, 7. David Anderson, 8. Kelly Linigen, 9. Shane Murphy
Heat 12 : 1. Robert Farr, 2. Ron Krikke, 3. Skip Jackson, 4. John Krikke, 5. Alan Haynes, 6. Terry Cutts, 7. Sharon Marriott, 8. Steve Knight
Progressive Qualifying Points (after 12 of 16 Heats) : 1. Green 95, 2. Migro 93, 3. Farr 93, 4. Ron Krikke 81, 5. Rush 77, 6. Dumesny 77, 7. Tatnell 75, 8. Priolo 73, 9. Calandro 72, 10. Marden 72, 11. Murphy 72, 12. March 71, 13. Milling 71, 14. John Krikke 69, 15. Jackson 68, 16. Wells 65, 17. Shane Krikke 61, 18. Madsen 57, 19. Scheuerle 54, 20. McComb 51, etc.
For further information please contact Mr. Jon Evans c/o SCCA E-Mail : JonEvans@compuserve.com Mobile : 0412 994400
