Young overcomes setback to take Round 4 at Oran Park

Gary Young's Salta Properties Mitsubishi Evo overcame a minor setback at the hands of competition stewards to dominate practice and qualifying for Round 4 at Oran Park last weekend (August 18th - 20th), and then go on to take two of the three races over Saturday and Sunday, and thus the overall round win.

Practice

Friday saw two practice sessions with Gary dominating the first session by almost a second from arch-rival Mark King, also in an Evo. The second session, in the afternoon, saw Barrie Nesbitt leapfrog Gary but by only .16 of a second. The suprise packets of these two sessions were the Exiges of Tim Poulton and Richard Buttrose, who were 3rd and 4th respectively.

Qualifying

Qualifying was on Saturday morning and both Poulton and Buttrose slipped down the order. The Salta Properties Evo, on the other hand, reasserted it's dominance of the twisty Oran Park GP layout with a time of 1:15.4045, a seond and a half faster than initial practice and well clear of the following pack of King, Nesbitt and Peter Floyd, Poulton and newcomer Renato Loberto in the ex-championship Subaru WRX.

Steward's Hearing

“We had the worst possible start to our weekend and a dream run today. The car is great and we’re in a good position to pull another result tomorrow,” Young said, in an interview on the Performance Car official website. The site went on to report that Gary "had arrived for the Oran Park weekend as championship leader, but lost the position as a result of a stewards’ decision yesterday. In a delayed hearing, the stewards ruled Gary's car had run an incorrect turbocharger part in round three in Darwin and penalised him with the loss of 36 points, relegating him to third place behind Barrie Nesbitt and Mark King."

So there was a bit of ground to be made up, and this obviously served as motivation for the rest of the weekend.

Race 1

Race 1 on Saturday saw Gary break the lap record. This continues a trend set in earlier rounds where competitors go all out in the first race to try and psyche out fellow competitors. In fact the first three cars home all were inside the previous lap record set last year by Garry Holt at the same round last year.

Peter Floyd and Tim Poulton were next home, Poulton building on his good practice form.

Race 2

Tim Poulton set the fastest time in Race 2 but suffered a setback when he clashed with the Commodore of Peter Floyd. This left the EVO trio of Young, Alexander and King to dominate the placings. Times were down on the previous race due to a dampening track.

Race 3

The final race of the weekend would determine who would win the overall round. Mark King won it but Gary's second place was enough to enable him to wrap up the round.

Outright Championship Points (after 4 rounds)

Photos courtesy of PCC, August 2007. More photos from Round 4 here.

Good form continues in Hidden Valley

Gary Young's Salta Properties Mitsubishi Evo continued its winning ways in Hidden Valley for Round 3 of the Donut King Performance Car Championship with a win in Race 2 overthe Commodores of Barrie Nesbitt and Peter Floyd.

Gary was right on the pace from the first practice session on Friday, running in 2nd position ahead of fellow Evo pilot and championship rival Gary King. Barrie Nesbitt was the man to beat, however, topping the timesheets in both sessions on Friday.

By Qualifying on Saturday only four cars were running in the 17s but this had the effect of pushing Gary back to 4th on the grid. All four cars were seperated by only 7/10ths of a second, showing how tight this championship is!

Track Layout and Facilities	Aerial View of Hidden Valley Circuit

Race 1 was won by Barrie Nesbitt, with Graham Alexander jumping both Floyd and Young with pacesetter Mark King finishing 9th but breaking the lap record in the process. In fact the first three placegetters also broke the lap record.

King's lower finish in Race 1 means Gary's championship prospects will receive a boost. They were improved even further in Race 2, won by Young, with King only managing a 4th. Gary's race win was also achieved by completing the fastest lap.

King was deemed to have jumped the start and was forced to serve a drive-through penalty. Furthermore he was penalised for ineligible brakes by the technical stewards from the Eastern Creek round and docked 16 competition points.

The results of race 3 were dominated by the EVO trio of King, Young and Alexander. Nesbitt finished 4th.

Gary led the race for the first seven laps, then pitted on lap 10 and worked his way back up to 2nd.

For the round Gary was equal on points with Commodore driver Nesbitt but lost the round win on a countback to Qualifying position. He did, however, take the competition lead, due to the Hidden Valley round being double points.

The next round is at Oran Park, August 17th - 19th in conjunction with the V8Supercars.

Outright Championship Points (after 3 rounds)

Young wins Round 2 at Eastern Creek

Gary Young won Round 2 of the recently retitled Donut King Performance Car Championship at Eastern Creek last weekend (8th - 10th June). With Donut King coming onboard as the Series sponsor, Gary celebrated with two seconds and a race win in Race 2.

Sydney's weather forced the cancellation of all track activity on Saturday with run-off areas and paddock awash after heavy rain over the past couple of days. There were practice sessions and one race on the Sunday and two races on the Queen's birthday weekend Monday.

The round saw three different winners in three races, Mark King on Saturday (with Gary a close second), Young in Race 2 Monday morning, and Barrie Nesbitt in Race 3 (again with Gary coming home second).

King, the 2000 and 2003 champion, and Young each have won a round and are looking forward to continuing their battle in Darwin.

“I was mindful of finishing the weekend without damage before Darwin and knew I could still win the round without pushing to pass Barrie,” Young said.

“But it was the best race I’ve had all year. I love the format of a pit stop for the last race. With Mark and I on a round win apiece and a couple of other drivers coming on strong, we have a real championship fight on our hands.”

Outright Championship Points (after two rounds)

1 Mark King 113
2 Gary Young 112
3 Barrie Nesbitt 103
4 Tony Alford 70
5 Tim Poulton 67
6 Graham Alexander 66

Results

For photos, check the Eastern Creek gallery

Gary Young consolidates good form at Winton

With the Wakefield Park round relegated to non-championship status due to a late CAMS accreditation hitch, the Winton round took over as the season opener for the Performance Car Racing championship. It was staged in conjunction with Round 4 of the V* Supercar Championship.

An added attraction to te championship was the inclusion of the Lotus Exige, of which several examples are now competing. Here's Gary (2nd from the right) on the podium at Winton.

Here are the results from Winton (first three places only):

Note: All first three placegetters under the lap record in Race 2

Note: Lap record broken again in Race 3.

Gary Young Racing Back in Action in 2007!

Gary Young made a successful return to circuit racing at Round 1 of The Performance Car Championship, held at Wakefield Park, March 30 - April 1, 2007 in conjunction with the Fujitsu V8 Series. After having successfully competed in a number of tarmac-based rallies in 2006, Gary drove his Mitsubishi EVO to a win in both races over the weekend. A full report of Gary's wins can be found at the official website.

You can also learn more about The Performance Car Championship at the official website. The championship points table can also be viewed at this website.

The next round is at Winton, May 18th - 20th. [Full Calendar]

Here are the results from Round 1 (first three places only):

Timing courtesy of NATSOFT.