Issue 3 Rolling Thunder e Mag

ROLLING THUNDER Racing E News/Magazine

www.racermagazineaustralia.com.au

Issue 3

Southern 2000 to REDDECLIFFE

VIC SPEEDCAR ACTION

Hot SDAV Rod review.

Happy 70th Birthday to Ray WelshSDAV #75. Still Going Strong!

Issue #3

ROLLING THUNDER Racing E News/Magazine 2


CONTENTS — Issue 3 Quick News. Team Galley. VMPA. Phil Lock. Speedcar Season 07/08. NSW Dirt Karts. Southern 2000. Jamie Heyen—Mini Sprint #27. SDAV Hot Rods—season review. Nick Hill—the future.

PHOTO’SCourtesy of:

Brett Swanson [email protected]

CLT Photography. (Cassie Tuckett)[email protected]

Darren Winter - Daz Pics.

MEDIA RELEASES: Brett Swanson Dean Thompson (DMT Media).

Published by: Racer Publishing Pty Ltd.ABN 69 122 820 348P O Box 1047, Bacchus Marsh.Victoria. Australia. 3340.

Editors: Brett Swanson, Ray Solomon.Contributors: Dean Thompson (DTM Media)

Contributors; Please email contributions to [email protected] or [email protected]

COPYRIGHT: Material contained in Rolling Thunder Racing E news is protected under the Commonwealth Copy-right Act 1968. No part of this publication may in any form or by any means be reproduced without the prior written permis-sion of the Publisher. The publisher has taken all reasonable precautions to ensure the complete accuracy of material con-tained in this publication, however, it is a condition of receiv-ing this magazine that the Publisher does not assume any responsibility for any loss or damage which may result from the content of material published in this magazine. Although Racer Publishing Pty Ltd uses its best endeavours to ensure the accuracy of everything it publishes, the Fair Trading Act 1985 requires Racer Publishing Pty Ltd to disclaim any belief in the truth or falsity of information whish is supplied to it and which is published in other than editorial comment. Unsolicited editorial contributions are welcome, how ever, no responsibility can be accepted for their safety or return. The options of contributors are not necessarily those of the Pub-lisher.

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Fire Service Plus Sprintcar All Stars Welcome’s Simpson RacewaySeries promoter Mandy Searle is expecting to have the final dates completed within the next few weeks. With the popularity of the Series last season it was a certainty that the number of Rounds would increase in its second sea-son. . “ We are looking at between 10 to 11 events this season, with the opening round on October 18th at Rolling Thunder Raceway. Again we chose to spread these dates out allowing competitors a couple of weeks between each event”. Searle said.Mildura’s Timmis Speedway is back on board again this year and has opted to take up 2 rounds. “We were cer-tainly more than pleased to accept their offer. Mildura is known as ‘party central’ in the Sprintcar world and all the teams appreciate the hospitality of the town.” Searle en-thused.Wangaratta City Raceway, Nyora Raceway & Ballarat’s Redline Raceway are all backing up for dates again for this oncoming season, a sign that the venues were more than pleased with the package offered by the All Stars last season. Searle is extremely pleased to announce the addition of 1 new track so far. Simpson Speedway in the southern re-gion of Victoria, have confirmed one date for the Series. “Simpson has an awesome Sprintcar competitor and fan base and it is fantastic to be able to promote our show at this great little track.” says Searle.Discussions are under way at the moment for the Final round of the Series which will be in April 2009, and possi-bly at another new venue for the All Stars.Scheduled dates are as follows;October 18 November 1November 22December 6January 17January 31February 14March 14March 28April 18April 25For more information on the Fire Service Plus Sprintcar All Star Series please go to www.sprintcarallstars.com.au

Rolling Thunder Raceway.RTR will promote 6 race meetings during the coming sea-son with 5 of these events being 360 Sprintcar events. Additional events will be programmed over the following winter.

RTR will host the inaugural “Thunder Sprintcar”™360 Nationals (TSN) which will be for 360 sprintcars with SCCA & ASCS engine specifications. The Thunder Sprintcar Nationals will be run most likely in late February and a 360 wingless race is also being considered later in the season. Details of all events at RTR will be reported in the next edition of RTR e-mag.

Steve Lines has won his second feature during his inaugural USA tour. Lines won the 2nd of the twin 20-lap features during the fourth annual "Night of Thunder" winged sprint car event on Friday night at Crossville Race-way. Lines started fifth in the inverted field and raced past Lance Moss from Cherryville, North Carolina into the lead on lap six for his second USCS victory lane visit. Lines fin-ished approximately six to eight car lengths ahead of Moss. Earlier Lines had finished in third in the first feature after setting quick-time in qualifying.

Brooke Tatnell qualified 2nd-quick from 31 cars at the IRA meeting at Britt, Iowa on Friday night. Tatnell stormed through from 6th to win his heat which qualified him in row three (outside) in the feature. Tatnell stayed in contention and gradually move in on the leaders. On lap 22 Tatnell finally took the lead and went on to win.

Tatnell then followed that up a week later with another win with the IRA at Jim Falls Raceway. Tatnell started his heat in 6th and finished in 5th, He then started the feature from the front row.

Tatnell’s good run has since continued with a fourth place in the coveted 360 Nationals and then a win on the same night in the companion 410 feature.

Aussie All Star racer Brad Foster landed a top-10 re-sult in the regional shootout between the Midwest and North West ASCS regions at Denison in Iowa on Friday. Brad finished his heat in 3rd place behind Don Droud Jr and Brian Brown.

Wade Aunger has accepted a position as Producer of Speedweek at AVE. Wade who does the announcing on Speedweek, sees this as an extension of his involvement in TV production and will be embarking on some new pro-jects in the field of corporate footprints (making a short dvd presentation of a business and their products and ser-vices), sponsorship/promotional motorsport dvd's and much more. Check out what’s happening in the world of Wade at www.wadeaunger.com.au

QUICK NEWS



The Sprintcar All Stars Series is the fastest growing Sprintcar series in Australia and based on the interest of competitors, the 2008/9 season is shaping up to be an exceptional year.

Car numbers continue to grow for next season with an expected car count approaching a minimum 24 cars per meeting. Drivers considering or actu-ally committed to the All Stars include;

Andrew Howard in the ex Luch Monte J&J who will be running an SCCA 360 engine.

Leigh Howard in the ex Jordan/Lewis ASCS engined Maxim,

Ron Donaldson is always a hard charger but has not raced for a couple of seasons. Donaldson has been crew-ing for series winner Darren Hickman but is currently waiting on a set of ASCS heads from the USA for his own engine prior to his return to driving.

Gary Bruce has only competed on a number of occasions over the past few years. However, Bruce is currently de-veloping a new engine with ASCS heads for a full return.

Rob Trezise had a number of engine issues last season and only raced on a few occasions. Trezise though is look-ing to the coming season with re-

newed optimism given he has now acquired another engine.

Sandie Hickman will be driving last years car series winning car of hus-band Darren with the an SCCA engine.

Colin Barker has had a season off and will be back with a vengeance this year in an ASCS powered eagle.

Chris Campbell has recently received delivery of his ASCS engine from the USA. Campbell who competed during the last 2 years in open competition with a 372 ci engine decided to change to the 360 Sprintcar division after his 372 engine suffered a major blow up at the end of last season. Campbell is a very competent driver as he has fin-ished runner up in the AMCA National Titles on a number of occasions.

Simon Amato is also reported to be running in both the open 410 and 360 class this year.

Steve Ellis Previously known for his exploits in Super Sedans and AMCA Nationals has taken the plunge and purchased a Sprintcar car for this com-ing season.

Warrick Taylor is also looking to en-ter the 360 ranks this season. The for-mer mini sprint driver for the past 3 years has decided to make the transi-

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Warwick Taylor is stepping up to full size Sprintcars in 08/09.



tion to an ASCS engined TCR chassis sprintcar

Damian Dannatt, the almost unbeat-able ex Marsh Modified driver is set to take the driving role in the Ken Hut-chins #49 car.

Current Victorian VSC Sprintcar Cham-pion Peter Logue and his son Wayneare also rumoured to be contemplating stepping up another 40 cubic inches with a pair of ASCS engines.

Sean Kuypers, the driver of the Tyre Plus green machine which took a spec-tacular spill at Rolling Thunder last season, will not be back this season. Kuypers has recently taken over the families Tyre Plus store in Campbell-field and has been forced to take a hiatus.

“We just put an ex Van Bremen Foster chassis under the car and had the en-gine freshened up when this business opportunity came up.” Kuypers ex-plained. “Racing will always be there and I will definitely be back.”

The Victorian SDAV Hot Rod Championship controversy .

The SDAV Title event at Stawell speed-way proved to be a contentious affair with action both on and off the track leading to class super star Shaun Walsh ending his days as an SDAV racer.

There has always been a bit of feeling between Russell Hovey and Walsh and this simmering tension came to the boil at Stawell when Hovey allegedly rear-ended Walsh as they went down the back straight during a caution pe-riod. Walsh then allegedly chased Hovey and retaliated with the contact bringing out the black flag to both drivers for their individual actions. Walsh was still fired up and a verbal stoush with officials saw him receive a seven month suspension from the VSC.

Subsequent to this, when a local news-paper in his home area rang for an interview to see how the three time and defending champion had fared at the title event, a still irate Walsh then let loose on the SDAV itself earning the wrath of the club and a 12 month ban from SDAV competition.The talented Walsh however, won’t be sitting idle next season with a potential wingless Sprintcar ride and a definite seat amongst the similar Super Rod division.

Victorian Speedway Council. The AGM of the VSC was held at Bal-larat on the 27th of July. The State Award was presented to Rod Meakins for his outstanding contribu-tion to his club, the VSC and the sport in general.

Meakins is the President of the Victo-rian Saloon Car Federation and works hard in all facets of the sport and is always one of the first to put his hand up and offer support to any track, club or organisation.

MODIFIED PRODUCTION SEDAN RACE DATES IN VICTORIA

The Victorian Modified Production as-sociation have released their sup-ported dates for the coming 08/09 season which includes the VMPA ‘Bass Highway Waste’ series dates which once again will be 7 race meetings, along with a number of race dates the VMPA have encouraged it’s drivers to support by not scheduling meetings against those dates.

For drivers looking to get an early start to the season the re-vamped Drouin Speedway, fresh from track works and an influx of new committee and volun-teer members is holding a feature race on Sunday 9th November in which all drivers are encouraged to support. This will be an ASCF sedan feature race including drivers from around the area such as Andrew Blackwell, Bryan Galley, Russell Bent, Darren Pottage, Russell Hill, Kenny Griffey, Nick Hill and Ian Ingham.



Drivers are then encouraged to sup-port long time VMPA campaigner Ron Watts by attending a feature race at Leeton in NSW on the massive 900+ metre race track before starting the ‘Bass Highway Waste’ series at Nyora on December 6th.

December the 20th is the NSW Modi-fied Production title and due to the support Victorians have given this event in recent years, the VMPA left the date off their calendar to allow drivers to chase this event. The tradi-tional two days for the ‘Bass Highway Waste’ series at Mildura and Swan Hill over Boxing Day and the following day are once again on.

The West Coast Classic at Avalon is the next event on January 10th before the VMPA follows up at Avalon a week later on the 17th January for round 4 of the association series supporting the National Super Sedan Series at Avalon. Then on the 24th its up to Moama’s Heartland Raceway for round 5 on Australia Day weekend with a $1000-to win feature at Mildura being pro-grammed on the 25th of January. As usual the ‘Mildura Mob’ of Robbie faux, Martin Hawson, Jeremy McClure, Matt McClure and Peter McCarthy should be strong.

On February 21st all roads lead to a feature event at Mount Gambier where

regular VMPA drivers from the South-ern State in Terry Brown, Mark Sy-monds & Chris Hayden get to defend their turf a week before the Victorian Title at the hallowed Premier Speed-way in Warrnambool on February 28th. We roll back into the 6th and final ‘Bass Highway Waste’ rounds at Horsham and Hamilton on March 7th and 8th.

In March its back to Nyora Speedbowl for the Alan Ramsdale Cup won last season by Mark Carlin before the last major event on the calendar in Easter at Albany, WA for the Australian Title and indications are that like last sea-son the event will be well supported by the Victorian member drivers.

Kathryne Minter To race in Australia???Media reports indicate that , Kathryne Minter, an ASCS National Tour com-petitor in the USA, may team up with the Matthew Reed Sprintcar team this season to race in Victoria in both 410

and 360 racing and possibly some other events at Parramatta and Ade-laide.

Minter will drive Reed's spare car pre-viously driven by Gary Isom during last season in the SRA (410) Series. There are still some loose ends to tie up, not least of which is contingency sponsors for tyres, fuel, crash parts and travel expenses etc.

Minter will likely kick off her Aussie campaign at the SRA opener at Avalon Raceway on 25 October.

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SPRINTCAR ALL STARS FAN APPRECIATION TO CONTINUE

The Sprintcar All Stars are commit-ted to bringing sprintcars closer to their fans. Last season, Frisbee’s signed by all the drivers were given away to the public along with the op-portunity for the younger fans to be

involved in the presenta t i on ceremony. This will continue in the 2008/9 season.

Mark Carlin in a very familiar place—victory lane.



Bryan Galley (front) with from left to right Dean Thompson (DMT Me-dia), Rick Galley (Crew) Kev Fitzger-ald (Crew & Forrestree Harvesting, (John Watson (Holden), Russell Hill (Ramsdale Wreckers), Ken Alberni (Pakenham Crane Trucks), Matt Eastham (Victory Lane Racegear) , Lisa Galley (Crew) & Rob Bundle (G&R Flooring).

TEAM GALLEY 08/09 SPONSORS DAY

The Speedway off-season is a hive of activity in the Team Galley Motorsport camp after taking delivery of a VE Holden Commodore that will be put into battle this coming 08/09 speedway season right through the state of Victoria and ma-jor Modified Production Sedan title races across the country.

Team lead driver Bryan Galley is understandably delighted with the new car and a number of sponsorship deals that have occurred in recent weeks for the team.

“It’s been a busy off season indeed. Good friend of mine John Watson gave myself and my media and sponsorship man-ager Dean Thompson one contact at Holden and we have been able to get Holden onboard with us this season for which we are grateful. Dean and the contacts at Holden were in communication for a few months before we finally crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s. To Dean I thank him very much for his work as it was a weight off my shoulders as negotiations rolled on. To John I also owe gratitude for getting us up to first base so that Dean could do the talking for us. The deal means we will have one of the first VE’s on the race track in our category and with the way things are coming along I expect to be on the race track in October.”

Under a contractual agreement with Holden the team can’t disclose the full extent of Holden’s involvement however can advise that the agreement will see Team Galley Motorsport with legal approval to run the famed Holden Logo in Holden colours on the race car and that Team Galley Motorsport will be sporting the Holden Logo into the new season.

Holden hasn’t been the only sponsor to confirm their involvement in this exciting new season that starts with Galley rac-ing at Drouin Speedway, Avalon Raceway and Nyora Speedbowl before travelling to South Australia in December to try to win the South Australian Modified Production sedan title for the third year in succession.

Col’s Fibreglass in Yandina Queensland have been a valuable sponsor supplying the required panels for the race car and the team appreciate the assistance. “Col gave me a hand when I was up in Maryborough for the last Australian title and as a result of that contact we have been able to work out a deal that allowed me to get panels for this new car, I thank Col and look forward to a growing sponsorship arrangement as time goes on and you can find him on the internet as Col’s Fibreglass.” Galley said.

Paul Young at Castrol has been able to negotiate a sponsorship arrangement for the team that increases Castrol’s in-volvement and commitment to the team for the coming season.

The Family Hotel Drouin, Matt Eastham at Victory Lane Racegear, Ken Alberni at Pakenham Crane Hire, Russell Hill at Ramsdale Wreckers, Rob & Greg at G and R Flooring, Jason McKinnell at Forestree Harvesting, Dean Parsons at DP Blasting along with Repco & Moe Engines are all on board for the season ahead that also takes in the National Title in Albany, Western Australia, the Victorian Title at Warrnambool and NSW title at Nowra.

As usual the team will also do fund raising for the Kidney Health organisation in appreciation of their work and care for Bryan’s wife Lisa who is recovering from her recent transplant.



RUSSELL HILL ON TOP IN 3 LITRE ASSOCIATION

The 3 Litre Sedan Association held its annual presentation dinner in Bendigo on July 26th with a healthy turnout of drivers, crews, friends, sponsors and families in attendance for the point score count down for the 07/08 season.

The evening started with a thank you to out going series sponsor Ian Ingham, who for the past two seasons has supported the association as they push forward with pro-viding entertaining and value for dollar sedan racing in Vic-torian speedway. Ian has recently sold his business and therefore can no longer be the major sponsor; however he looks forward to remaining in the category as a race driver for the new season.

Outgoing committee members Andrew and Suzy Irvine, Andrew Fleming and Wally Hucker were acknowledged and then Russell Hill, Steve Horvath, Ian Ingham and Peter Ahearn were welcomed onto the committee for the up-coming season.

The association awards special embroidered caps for the place getters at the Victorian Title for its member drivers and the title this year at Hamilton resulted in the top 3 placing’s being taken out by members. Rodney Burr in 1st, Luke Nash in 2nd and Kenny Griffey in 3rd.

Grant ‘Grubby’ Bird from the Victorian Modified Production Association then hosted the Calcutta with Russell Hill being the top purchase and hot favourite to take out the coveted #1 for the season.

Some contingency awards were awarded for the following:Best looking Crew – Zac SwansonEncouragement Award – Damian MillerSportsman Award – Zac Swanson

Six drivers were then recognised for their 100% atten-dance during the season by competing in all 8 rounds of the series. These drivers were Morris Ahearn, Zac Swan-son, Ross Burrows, Steve Horvath, Steve Sutherland and Russell Hill. The association drivers thank L J Automotive and Ramsdale Wreckers for sponsorship of the contingency awards.

Some 24 members took part during the season with non member drivers racing with the category when they made the trips to Hamilton and Swan Hill. The association has a few new drivers purchasing race cars and entering the category for the new season and some returning race driv-ers and interesting additions to the category if the rumours are correct.

After rounds at Nyora, Hamilton, Wangaratta, Redline, Rushworth, Simpson, Swan Hill and Alexandra in which Rodney Burr took out two wins, Russell Hill three wins and Will Lamb, Steve Sutherland and Jack McClure 1 a piece the top 10 points produced a second association champion-

ship victory to Russell Hill, making him the first driver to win the association point score twice.

Russell Hill (Drouin Speedway Club) 3060 PointsSteve Sutherland (Bendigo Speedway Club) 2460 Zac Swanson (Ballarat Speedway Club) 2340Morris Ahearn (Bendigo Speedway Club) 2235Ross Burrows (Ballarat Speedway Club) 2195Lennie Clark (Bendigo Speedway Club) 2190Will Lamb (Ballarat Speedway Club) 2025Steve Horvath (Nyora Raceway Inc) 1840Damian Miller (Nyora Raceway Inc) 1720Ian Ingham (Nyora Raceway Inc) 1520

Russell Hill was understandably very happy with the sea-son’s results and being the first driver to have his name on the trophy as a two time winner. He thanked his crew Rob Bickham, Kenny Griffey and family before noting that next season with returning drivers and the improved drivers from this season the championship was going to be tough to defend, however he is up for the challenge.

“I have made a full commitment to the 3 Litre Association again next season after recently selling my Modified Pro-duction to Kenny Griffey. Myself and Nick (Son) will run a two car team in 3 Litre’s and I’m working hard on getting some champions of the class in years gone by to come back and race against me and make defending the champi-onship even tougher. Sutherland, Swanson, Ahearn and Burrows were up their at the front end all season and Jack McClure and the other top 10 finishers will be back bigger and better next season. I would love to win it again and be the first to have their name on the trophy 3 times.”

The association drivers then presented Association Coordi-nator Jodi Clark and husband Lennie Clark an accommoda-tion voucher for a getaway to Melbourne in appreciation for their efforts for the season.

The 3 Litre association would like to also thank Bryan and Lisa at Team Galley Motorsport for donation of some auc-tion item’s and Matt Eastham at Victory Lane Racegear for vouchers for the best presented cars per round.

3 Litre Association Top 3 L to R: Zac Swanson 3rd, Russell Hill 1st, Steve Sutherland 2nd



Lock Motor Sport -Team update

Season 2008/9 will be Phil Lock’s 3rd

season running the 360 sprintcar and promises to be a great season.

Phil said that “We have been getting closer & closer to winning an A Main event and will keep chipping away at our goal to win that elusive feature race”.

Phil hopes to become more consistent in his performance and results in sea-son 2008/9. “Together as a team we shall continue learning whilst having some great weekends away with all our travelling supporters and fellow competitors, crews & officials”.

This season Lock will be starting the year in a new raised rail wide body Eagle chassis with some updated run-ning gear, “the car is well under way and will be ready for the first practice

of the season”. The SCCA engine was freshened after a major blow up in the Australian 360 title final 10 laps from home, one of Phil's few DNF’s

for the 22 or so race meetings he competed last season.

Lock Motors Sport Team members shown above are from right to left Matthew Trigg, Murray Lock (Crew chief) Andrew Lee, Peter Pearson, Phillip Lock (Driver) & Claire Bamford. Not shown is Phil’s father Jim Lock who often drives the truck & loans the team the farm bike for the weekend.

Thanks must go to all our great Spon-sors who have helped us along the

way. They are: Aussie Drain who specialize in sub surface drainage, Heytesbury Fertilizers, Genetics Australia, Lubrimaxx, F.M Mahar & Associates, Colac Bodyworks, Vogels Motors, Weatherware and Magilton signs.

Phil is looking forward to the upcom-ing season to tackle the many series events available to the 360 cars, such as the Rolling Thunder Events, All Stars series, SRA and hopefully a run in Adelaide & Murray Bridge to round out the season.

All Stars—Fast Guys from Victoria’s South West.Victoria’s south west has produced more than their fair share of fast and exciting Sprintcar drivers. The areas around Timboon, Simpson, Warrnambool and Portland etc, has been the breeding ground for many past Sprintcar champions and many 360 All Stars have shown that they can keep up with best.

Phil and brother Murray cut their teeth in the tough Sportsman (NOS) class where both were State Champions. Here Phil races with Vic #1 Garry Balcombe.

Above - unique paint work of sponsor Genetics Australia.



The 2007/08 Victorian midget auto racing season had a measure of frus-tration attached to it in as much as the local scene was handicapped with a shortage of entries from the com-plete roster of VSDA cars throughout the season. Added to which a series of blown engines and wrecks also reduced the numbers at all meetings. However, to their credit the VSDA racing performances were of a very high standard and were so acknowl-edged by many regular followers dur-ing the season.

The season curtain raiser at Avalon on October 13 saw the return to rac-ing of Jason Forbes (driving the Crab-tree Racing Team # 9 Gaerte/Breka), who had been sidelined since his huge dump at Bacchus Marsh on Feb.18, 2006. His "comeback" was highlighted with a creditable perform-ance for a first and second in his two Heats and a good effort to hold off South Aussie star Luke Dillon for third in the Main. Top honours for the night however went to Luke Stanley who scored an excellent Feature win in his # 78 Fontana/Murphy from John McKay (SA), Forbes and Dillon. Stanley looked set for a good season.

Round 2 on the VSDA schedule was inked in for the Bacchus Marsh’s Roll-ing Thunder venue on Nov. 3, but an overdose of H2O saw the meeting washed out.

November 10, 2007 was a Speedcar Super Series Round at Avalon and it was pleasing to note Forbes giving a good account of himself among all those Interstate "hot-shoes" in only his second comeback appearance. However, the next actual VSDA sanc-tioned event was slated for Nyora on November 24 to contest Round 3 of the clubs points score championship. Despite some good racing the meet-ing was somewhat subdued by the nasty head-on crash with the wall of Forbes who was showing good form

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Victorian Speedcar07/08 Season Review

Brad Jackson (6) and Peter Ghent (3) race hard at Avalon during the AGP meet.



in his previous two outings. When at-tempting a close pass on David Patter-son, he rode a wheel, causing an un-canny 90 degree turn straight into the concrete, severely wrecking the midget and badly bruising himself. His team boss, David Crabtree in his # 97 Fontana/Breka, turned in a great duel with a much improved Craig Smith (# 33 Volvo/JSR) for several laps to even-tually take the Feature. They were fol-lowed by points leader Luke Stanley and Darren Hossack (#22 Gaerte/Hawk.

The VSDAs fourth meeting at Ballarat's Redline Raceway on December 8 was for the prestigious annual "Beasley Memorial", attracting interstate stars Mark Brown and Peter Bourke from NSW, (both former winners of this event) and Luke Dillon (SA). Former Beasley winner Ian Lewis, who con-centrates on Sprintcars in recent years was at the wheel of the Paul Jordan owned # 75 Mopar/Beast and making his first appearance after a three sea-son lay-off, Brad Warrener in his # 67 Esslinger/Stealth were two welcome entries. Also making a surprise debut to midget racing was Sprintcar driver Bob Forbes, (father of Jason), driving the # 10 Fontana/Breka of the Crab-tree Racing Team. This year's event was also marketed as an official cele-bration of Redline Raceway's 40th An-niversary. A good night's racing re-sulted in Mark Brown (# 11 Hawk/

Aggressor) eventually hauling in Ian Lewis to score his third "Beasley Me-morial". They were followed by Luke Dillon and Peter Bourke.

Jan. 5, 2008 slated at Wangaratta for Round 5 of the VSDA points score chase, saw Stanley and Crabtree in a tight tussle for the club champion-ship at this stage. Rod Francis jour-neyed down from Sydney for this meeting, but forgot to leave his truck-load of gremlins at home and was sidelined the whole night with ignition problems. Last season's "rookie of the year" Rodger Smaill (# 12 V8 Rover/Bullet) upstaged the VSDA leading lights with a great drive to score the feature event from Eden Jordan, Stanley and Crabtree. Early leader Warrener, who was doing well in the lead, spun out of contention when looking a potential winner and had no

hope when relegated to the rear in the restart. Two other likely prospects on the night Brad Jackson (# 6 Pontiac/Breka), broke a rocker arm just as he crossed the line to win Heat 1 after a scorching drive, and in Heat 2 Hos-sack, coming out of turn 4 in the lead with the flag in sight had the misfor-tune to blow his engine but had enough momentum to coast home in fourth place, as he watched Crabtree, Stanley and Smith sail by. However both Jackson and Hossack were done for the night.

The following week was the highly prestigious annual "Australian Grand Prix" at Avalon on Jan. 12. This is not a VSDA sanctioned event usually, but the VSDA are recently endowed with increasing responsibility to organ-ize the event. With 13 interstate com-petitors entered for the event, it was never-the-less a proud moment for Victorian midget racing, as home town ace Ian Lewis piloted to victory ahead of Troy Jenkins (NSW) and Dene McAl-lan (WA). Lewis not only won the AGP but also was a Heat winner as well as top man in the pole shuffle, while Vic-toria's Peter Ghent (# 3 Hawk/Spike) came home in fourth.

Resuming the local agenda in Round 6 at Rosedale on Jan.19 resulted in Stanley notching his second Feature win of the season ahead of Crabtree, Patterson and Forbes, now back in action with the Crabtree # 10 team car as the compressed # 9 is still out of shape.

Round 7 on Feb. 9 at Bacchus Marsh

Veterans David Crabtree and Peter Bourke (N27) - Avalon - AGP



saw the return to action of Darren Power, after a brief retirement prior to the season's start, at the wheel of Smaill's # 12 Bullet midget. However it was youthful Patterson (# 4 turbo-Renault/Murphy), who says he has an affinity for the long straights and wide turns of the "Rolling Thunder" venue, who turned it up a notch and lapping at a quick rate of knots, blasted to an impressive Feature win from Power, Forbes and Crabtree, to begin a steady gathering of points as the season pro-gressed.

Round 8 in the VSDA points score on March 1 at Avalon again saw the wel-come appearance of Power, accepting the offer of Smaill's car while he was taking a break due to business com-mitments, but with the Power Racing Group's Fontana engine installed. Power's return added another dimen-sion to the standard of competition, however it was the dicing in the Fea-ture race between Ghent and Crabtree grabbing spectators attention, as "Crabby" turned it on to lead Ghent over the line for his second Midget Main from Forbes and Patterson.

On Sunday March 9, a team of Victo-rian drivers travelled to South Austra-lia's Bordertown venue to support the SASA sanctioned meeting. Power at the wheel of the Crabtree # 10 was obviously enjoying being back in action as he hammered down to score the Feature win from fellow Victorian Ghent with Luke Dillon (SA) third. Other Victorians to make the trip for

this event were Crabtree and Smith. This interlude oc-curred the weekend prior to the 63rd running of the i m p o r t a n t " V i c t o r i a n Championship" which was in-augurated on May 4, 1935 and is Interna-tionally re-

garded as the World's second oldest blue ribbon event, just six months short of the U.S. "Thanksgiving Grand Prix".

On March 15 Simpson Speedway hosted the Victorian Championship which was ultimately the biggest let down in Victoria's long history of Midget Auto Racing, when anticipated interstate nominations never material-ised despite being publicised well in advance. This combined with the VSDA shortage of cars for various reasons throughout the season was an embar-rassing situation. Never-the-less with the title scheduled for some time the meeting went ahead with the titled recognized as a VSDA "in house" event only, but will be recorded as Power's fourth State Championship ahead of Crabtree, Smith and Patterson. Their was misery though for Forbes who flipped and Ghent who blew an en-gine.

Round 10 of the season's point score was set for Nyora on April 12, resulting in the third feature win for Crabtree from Power, Smith and Patterson. At this meeting 3 time AMCA division Na-tional Champion, Adam Wallis made his midget debut, driving the Power Racing Group # 59 Fontana/Stealth which Wallis had leased from team Chief Barry Power. Also making a wel-come reappearance after a three year absence was Alan Nankiville at the wheel of the Lindsay Brown owned # 6 Pontiac/Breka normally driven by Brad Jackson. Jackson is still suffering

a back injury sustained after flipping it recently. Both Wallis and Nankiville turned in very impressive perform-ances on the night and are a real ac-quisition to the VSDA ranks.

Final meeting of the season at Rose-dale on April 19 for Round 11 of the club points score Championship was another top night of midget racing. Power underlined a successful come-back with another Feature win ahead of Smith, Nankiville and Wallis. The last two named again putting in a great performance considering it was only their second meeting of the sea-son. With a Heat win apiece and plac-ings in every one of their four appear-ances of the night it augurs well for their future in the sport. In finishing fifth in the "Main" Crabtree has en-sured himself of the season Club Championship. After looking at what might have been a successful season earlier, Stanley had the misfortune to encounter a run of mechanical prob-lems and from a tight contest to begin with and even leading for a while, his season fell away completely to see the top three club championship points score go to 1st David Crabtree, 2nd David Patterson, and 3rd Craig Smith.

David Crabtree Relaxing prior to another race.

ED: I suggest David go to bed a bit earlier!



A Great 2008 Speedway Karts Title weekend.

The 2008 NSW Speedway Kart Titles sponsored by Angel’s Roofing Acces-sories was held on the 26th-27th July at the superb Nepean Motorsports complex and despite rain earlier in the week the two day meeting pro-duced sensational racing and a few new NSW Title holders.

The weekend, organised by the New South Wales Speedway Kart Club, featured a different format with the Midgets, Rookies, Juniors (Light & Heavy) and the sensationally fast For-mula 100’s on Saturday while the other senior divisions - KT Modified (Light & Heavy) and the Clubman (Light & Heavy) were racing on Sun-day and the new format worked ex-ceptionally well.

Saturday dawned cold but with the Nepean track bathed in brilliant sun-shine everything was set for a fantas-tic weekend of speedway karting ac-tion. The program included four rounds of 10 lap heats followed by a 20 lap final race to determine the new 2008 NSW Title holders.

The Midgets final was simply sensa-tional as both young Corey Foyle and Luke Sayer battled for the entire 20 laps. Foyle who has been racing just over 12 months and has been a real standout this year, picked up the Midget crown in what was one of the best races of the weekend. Third placed Kyle Angel was also impressive as was James Peters who took out a great win in the opening Midget heat. Others who raced hard included Rhys Tuohy, Jackson McNamara, Andrew Beattie and Brittany Hickey.

Regan Angel, son of the Title spon-sors Brad and Michelle Angel, took out a superb victory in the Rookies title shootout. He was fast all day and held out Nathan Camillari and a very impressive Nikki Britton to win the final. Other standouts on the day were Jake Baines and Sean Richards

who both put in 100% but finished down the order in the final.

The 2007 NSWSKC Club Champion Michael Jordan was entered in both the Junior Light and Heavy divisions and while sensationally fast and com-petitive in both, it was only in the Heavy class that Jordan took out the 2008 NSW crown. Jordan was impres-sive in defeating an equally impres-sive Brad Giffen, with Ashleigh Britton continuing on the Britton speedway family name with third placing.

Bronson Butcher travelled all the way from Holbrook and certainly showed that he meant business right from the opening heat in the Junior Light. His Arrow kart was quick and after pick-ing up a couple of heat victories he proved too quick, effortlessly winning the final over Michael Jordan with Matthew Pescod home in third.

The only senior class racing on Satur-day was Formula 100, with Wayne Baines & Sean Mayo joining the cast of the fast. David Hopping who had been the dominant racer earlier in the year continued his recent bad luck and engine problems saw him retiring early in the day. In the final, the 2007 NSW Champ Jonathan Bright had to settle for second and follow Brent Coghlan home with a hard charging Nathan Bailey third. Mayo, suffering from a football injury, was fast in his F100 debut but got caught up in a number of incidents while Baines who

was having a guest drive in the Keats Racing machine also struck a few problems during the day. Jason Freer, Matt Goff and Donald Steven were all fast early but had to settle out of po-dium places in the final.

Sunday wasn’t as bright as Saturday but the rain held off all day with light drizzle falling at presentation time. It was another busy day for a number of racers with Wayne Baines, Sean Mayo, Nathan Bailey (2 classes) and David Hopping (2 classes) returning after competing on Saturday. Fields, like Saturday, were big and with the Nepean track still in great shape the racing was superb.

Nathan Bailey proved too quick and defeated 2007 NSW Champ David

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Hopping to claim the KT Modified Light title with Nathan Randell after a great battle with Alana Baines finished third. Alana was in third for most of the race but after holding Randell out for many laps, ran wide in turn 1 allowing Ran-dell to forge by with Baines finishing back in fourth.

A Strong 20 kart field assembled for the Clubman Heavy division with 2007 Champion Wayne Baines looking to defend his crown picking up the first two heat races. In the final Steven Mitchell just demolished the stellar field to claim his first title with Daniel Selmes second and Baines third. Standouts earlier in the day were Gary Slarke and Les Green as was Michael Lahiff and Cameron Coghlan but the day belonged to Steven Mitchell.

John Watton the sprintcar team crew chief moved into the speedway karts last year and after just a handful of meetings proved to be the guy to beat

in the KT Heavy class. Watton was impressive in the heats picking up a victory and in the final his #2 machine was too quick beating home an im-pressive Jason Freer and Lean Cole-

man. Craig Banks was expected to be one of the guns but after impressive drives in the heats fowled a plug be-fore the start of the final.

David Hopping like Nathan Bailey, competed in three divisions on the weekend but it was Clubman Light which saw him claiming a State crown. David was too strong winning the final over Jonathan Bright and Tim Love-day. Brent Coughlin showed the same form that saw him bag the formula 100 title on Saturday, qualifying on the front row for the final, however a fowled plug in rollups ended his oppor-tunity for a 2nd title on the weekend.

Some of the standouts were Natalie Genner, Sean Mayo and Nathan Bailey in what was a hotly contested division. With 25 entries the class had to be split in two for the heat racing, with the top 20 point-scorers combining for the 20 lap final.

Presentations were held at the end of each day and with near record nomi-nations, sensational track conditions and rain holding out all weekend the Angel’s Roofing Accessories NSW Speedway Kart Titles was certainly a success.

The 2008 NSW Speedway Kart Titles was proudly sponsored by: Angels Roofing Accessories.

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REDDECLIFFE ROARS AT NYORA

The 2nd annual ‘Southern 2000’ for Open Independent Sedans attracted a quality field of entrants and despite wet and overcast weather around Mel-bourne on Sunday 22nd June, Nyora Speedbowl was able to hold the race meeting as planned making it almost through the whole day.

Defending Champion Gary Wicks in a 3 Litre Commodore had some stiff com-petition to combat with Brad McClure and Daniel Barton both former Austra-lian champions along with Darren Forrest entered in their Street Sedans, Steve Reddecliffe and Darren Tindal in their V8 Sedans along with Dale Morri-son, Justin Alberni and Simon Bent in their Modified Sedans and Troy Simp-son and Nick Hill in their 3 Litre Com-modores and Victorian Open Inde-pendent Champion Steve Young as the major challengers.

The format allowed for 15 heats with each driver having 3 heats each in which to earn enough points to qualify for the feature race over 50 laps racing distance.

Heat one got under way with Wicks dashing forward from the front row whilst Rob Bickham went backwards in his XF Ford. Wicks at one stage on a wet track was half a lap in front before suffering terminal engine trouble and pulling infield. Simpson went on to take the win from Marcus Reddecliffe in a 1200cc Corolla Junior Sedan, Mor-rison, Bickham and Leigh Gooding.

Heat 2 produced a great tussle with Bent in the Modified Sedan holding out the V8 of Tindal ahead of Trevor Wise and Tony Moule in his father’s old To-rana sedan with a 202ci engine. A lot less horse’s than his usual 360ci Sprintcar machine.

The V8’s won their first heat in heat 3 with Steve Reddecliffe getting the win over Nick Hill who impressed all com-ing from the back of the field in his first ever senior Speedway event. Third was Mark Miles followed by Daniel Ar-

goon and John Watson. Reddecliffe lapped everybody accept for 16 year old Hill.

The fourth heat was nice and neat for a small field with Alberni taking a clear and clean win from Forrest, Eric Miles and John Cole. Starting from pole posi-tion in the 5th heat it was an all the way win from McClure with a hard charging Young trying to chase him down. Danny Archer in a V8 took third spot ahead of Barton and Tim Cole.

The 6th heat and the first of the sec-ond round produced the first driver to win two heats with Steve Reddecliffe taking the win ahead of Bent, Eric Miles, Hill and Gooding. Simpson took victory in the 7th heat ahead of Mark Miles and Bickham who had his car racing forward this time out and Rick Sankey, Braiden Perkins, Jason Van der Pol and Matt Reddecliffe finished behind.

The second driver to score a winning heat double was McClure in the 8th

heat. Alberni had the race shot to pieces before it looked like he had fuel problems that caused the car to cough and splutter pull off the race track be-fore getting back on to take second. Tim Cole was third then Steve Ing, Daniel Angus, Shane Ardley and Ash Hamilton.

Heat 9 produced a win for Tindal ahead of Marcus Reddecliffe who was doing a great job in the under pow-ered 1200cc Corolla against the 600 horsepower V8, Moule took 3rd. Barton took his first victory on the Nyora ‘Bull Ring’ in heat 10 ahead of Morrison, Young, Forrest, Travis Roberts, Trevor Wise and John Cole.

Round 3 in the heats got under way with Tindal winning the 11th heat with a front flat right driving around conser-vatively once he opened up the initial race lead to finish ahead of Moule, Tim Cole, Matt Reddecliffe and John Cole.

Steve Reddecliffe became the first driver to win 3 heats from 3 starts as he led home Alberni, Gooding, Eric

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Miles and Watson in heat number 12. Heat 13 was a great win in a quality field for Bent who defeated Simpson, McClure, Morrison, Sankey, Roberts and Mark Miles.

Open Independent hard charger Trevor Wise took victory in the 14th heat ahead of Forrest, Ardley, Ing and Marcus Reddecliffe. The final heat race of the event was taken out by Barton ahead of Young, Hill, Ross Wise and Braiden Perkins.

A last opportunity to qualify for the 50 Lap feature was given in the B Main and Shane Ardley in a Standard Saloon was doing a fine job in front leading all the way before his car got caught up in somebody else’s accident and had the front end smashed. The race was declared and Shane was given 10 minutes to try to fix it and get it out for the fea-ture as weather was closing in. He couldn’t do that and Leigh Gooding declared 2nd and Ing who finished third were elevated into the 50 lap feature.18 cars lined up for the 2008 Southern 2000 in the follow-ing order:

Steve Reddecliffe – V8 SedanTroy Simpson – 3 Litre Commodore

Darren Tindal – V8 Sedan

Simon Bent – Modified CommodoreBrad McClure – Ford Street Sedan

Justin Alberni – Modified CommodoreDaniel Barton – Holden Street Sedan

Darren Forrest – Ford Street SedanMarcus Reddecliffe – 1200cc Corolla

Nick Hill – 3 Litre Commodore

Dale Morrison – Modified XF FordTony Moule – Open Independent Torana

Trevor Wise – Open Independent CommodoreEric Miles – Open Independent Mitsubishi Scorpion

Tim Cole – Open Independent CommodoreMark Miles – XF Ford Standard Sedan

Leigh Gooding – Open Independent Ford

Steve Ing – Open Independent Commodore

The race got underway however was quickly flagged back to a reformation when Alberni couldn’t get his car to fire up. He eventually got it rolling in order to start rear of the field at the 2nd attempt. The race took off again with Red-decliffe leading the charge and Bent quickly following through into 2nd ahead of Tindal whilst Simpson dropped back to 4th.Forrest didn’t last long in the big ford as it succumbed to a flat left rear tyre and pulled infield.

2nd Place Darren Tindal (# 4) passing Ross Wise during heat action © Cassie Tuckett



Lap 3 saw the little Corolla crunched into the turn 1 wall and Marcus Reddecliffe’s race was done. It wasn’t long after that McClure also pulled infield with a flat tyre which may have been a result of the great tussle going on between himself and 4 other drivers battling for 5th to 9th spot.

The race leader was starting to thread through the field and as he was doing so he got sideways and spun as he came up to lap Tony Moule and had to jump on the brakes. Officials deemed that Reddecliffe would have kept control of his car and was helped around by Moule and Moule was sent to the rear of the field.

(ED (!) While Reddecliffe had no influence on the stewards decision as he was behind the wheel of his racecar at the time, he was however, ex-tremely lucky as the officials decision and reason-ing was quite perplexing).

The race restarted however, the rain was soon drizzling on the clay racing surface. The officials were watching the drivers closely and noticed that they were losing grip to the surface and rushing through tear off’s due to the rain on the track and the chequer flag was pulled out at the 15 lap mark of the race just as it was getting inter-esting with the 6 cylinder cars closing in on the V8 Se-dans in traffic.

Bent and Alberni were on the move and Simpson, Hill, Morrison and Barton were in position to attack later in the race.Steve Reddecliffe was declared the winner ahead of Dar-ren Tindal and Simon Bent, Troy Simpson, Justin Alberni, Nick Hill, Dale Morrison and Daniel Barton.

Nyora looks forward to a fantastic event next season with interest coming from NSW and Tasmania to enter the event along with the drivers appearing for the first time this year looking to come back with mates next year.

The Southern 2000 was proudly sponsored by Allcare Exhausts Pakenham, B & H Scrap Removals, Horvath Transport Services and Ramsdale Wreckers for the sec-ond year in succession.

Nyora Speedbowl committee acknowledges the following sponsors and encourages speedway fans to support the businesses that support our speedways.

Aarons Car Removals – 94625955Allcare Exhausts Pakenham – 59413488Bass Highway Waste – 56788994B & H Scrap Removals – 0411556746Economy Bolts - 0407400542Horvath Transport Services – 97031099Mahoneys Road Auto Salvage – 94603113MCF Trailers – 59402034Pakenham Steel Supplies – 59402064Plendrive Septic Cleaning Pakenham – 59427126Ramsdale Wreckers Pakenham - 59411122Sandridge Refrigerated Transport – 0418347288Victory Lane Racegear – 0419321722

Southern 2000 Winner Steve Reddecliffe – Picture © Cassie Tuckett (CLT Photography)



18 year old Jamie Heyen, got the speedway bug from his dad Garry, a former SDAV Hot Rod and AMCA Nationals racer.

Like many, all he could think about was racing a Sprintcar.So what does a third year apprentice refrigeration mechanic do when he wants to go sprint car racing? He buys a mini sprint.At least from the back at a distance going down the road on an open trailer they look like a Sprintcar.

The other problem for Heyen though was that he lives in the Murray river town of Cobram in Northern Victoria and most of the Mini-sprint races are down in Gippsland, particularly at Ny-ora..

Undeterred, the family operation pur-chased an ex Darren Painter Z1000 Kawasaki powered Beast and without any prior racing experience, the younger Heyen headed out full of high hopes and expectation, mixed with a fair amount of nerves and trepidation.

This is how their first season in Mini-Sprints unfolded.

The year that was for mini sprint 27 -Jamie Heyen.

The season started with a four and half hour drive from the Murray River town of Cobram down to Nyora speedway.

On arriving we unloaded our racecar and had it scrutineered and then after plenty of photos we were ready to make our racing debut.With only a small field of four cars it was good for Jamie’s first outing in

any type of racecar. After starting out of position four he was off racing only for the engine to misfire and for him to finish at the rear.After a frantic look to see what the problem was, a change of spark plugs and heat 2 was upon us. Out he goes again only for more en-gine problems and another finish at the rear.Another look at the plugs, fuel and all other components and a few adjust-ments are done, it’s out for heat 3. Frustratingly, again there’s still no im-p r o v e m e n t and another last place re-sult.Well its final t ime and we’re starting out of position four. Ten laps later the chequered flag waves and he is awarded 3rd position ahead of another rookie.Jamie is stoked. He’s got his first race meeting under his belt and a trophy and the car is still in one piece.

For our second race meeting we are off to Alexandra hoping that the misfir-ing engine is running better after re-placing all the electrical components.Arriving at Alexandra the stomach churns as there’s a dozen cars here

this time. Jamie elects to start rear of field to make sure the car is running better but here we go again. After 3 laps the car starts misfiring again and another poor finish is the result.After another frustrating race meeting, the car goes home straight with only a hurt ego, but that’s motor racing.

More money, more replacement parts, and hopefully the racecar’s nowr e a d y t o p e r f o r m .

For our third race meeting we’re a little closer to home at Rushworth. Out for hot laps and the car dies. What now? Fuel tap off (Oops). Heat one and with all the family and mates watching away we go. Beauty! It’s going good. 3 laps in and we’re back to a misfiring engine. What a joke! Back in the pits it’s off with the bonnet and change the plugs and change the ignition ready for heat 2. Out he goes but the same as heat one - another last place finish.

The year that was for mini sprint 27 - Jamie Heyen

Where it all started, Jamies Dad Garry in his Woodstock AMCA.



More adjustments are made and we’re back out for the final. Still no improvement – you guessed it - finish at the rear.

F r u s t r a t i o n , f r u s t r a t i o n !

We replaced a faulty ignition and head over to Wangaratta for a test day. It all looks good and looks like

the problem is fixed.

Back to Nyora for the fourth meeting. Heat one, out of position four, and away we go. Into the first turn, up into the loose stuff and its time to find out what the wall feels like and to see what the wing can do underneath the car.A wrecked car is the result but Jamie was still able to wave to the fans. Another busy time is had in the pits taking broken parts off, putting new parts on and car is ready to go for the final with out wings.Without wings Jamie makes it to the end for another finish but with a very

sore racecar.

Back home it’s off to the repairers and a restock of parts and we are ready for our fifth race meeting back at Ny-ora.

Understandably, Jamie’s a little cau-tious in the first heat but the confi-dence starts to return in heat 2 We head out for the final but a broken bolt prevented us from finishing.

At home and we call in the experts to find out what the problem is with en-gine. Try this, try that. It all seems ok and we’re off in a new direction to Simpson. A windy and rainy night greets us but the meeting goes ahead.Heat one - more problems and an-other disappointing result. Heat two is no better.

Frustrated, we park the car and watch the final.

The Victorian title was the next meet-ing and hopefully the car is fixed but our worst nightmare greets us as the engine is still missing. Anyway we run our heats and start the final out of position 10 only to be caught up with another car and over he goes. Another repair bill and an-other DNF!

For the next meeting we are back at Nyora. This meeting turns into an-other nightmare but we survive it with no damage but our pride is pretty

battered by now.

The final race for the season is again at Nyora and by this time the tow ve-hicle can be put on autopilot to get us there.

With a new battery we are hoping for a good end to the season. The car starts heat one and is going well until a stoppage. 15 caution laps later and our gremlins are back. Apart from not being at the front, the day finished with no damage and a better result than previously.

The highlight of the season for the team however, was in winning the Melbourne Mini Sprint clubs best pre-sented car and crew award.

Now the off-season is upon us it’s time for a strip down and a rethink and possibly a new engine.

Jamie would like to thank his spon-sors and supporters for their support during his rookie season and eagerly looks forward to a trouble free 08/09 season thanks to:The Charles Sturt Motor Inn CobramSikkens paints Barry Dickson Paint and PanelKatunga General Store Spiller Refrigeration Pat Barrett's Tyre ServiceMurray River SparesWeld Flex Plastic weldingSigns and symbols.

Don’t forget the Charles Sturt Mo-tor Inn in Cobram for your next Winter Getaway.

Jamie - sans wings, races on in the feature at Nyora after riding out his first ever roll-over.



Back in the 1980’s, Victorian speedway was in a very strong position. With the Melbourne Speedbowl in operation, the VSDAV Hot Rods and the VSDA Midg-ets had a regular home and huge numbers of competitors and fans.When the bowl shut down, all classes were hit hard, including the almighty Sprintcar division. The Rods and Midg-ets though, were probably hardest hit as they now had to travel to country venues in order to get their racing fix. Not surprisingly, especially in the case of the hot rods who faced opposition from other ‘rival’ hot rod classes such as the Peninsula Rods, the super rods and the VSC Rods, their numbers dwindled quickly.

When the VSC rods evolved into V8 Dirt modifieds, it re-opened the door slightly but they still struggled to grow any sort of decent numbers or sup-port. Even in the last five years they have still struggled just to exist at times with five or six cars maximum turning up to race meetings. That however, appears to be changing with last season showing a good influx of new drivers and a solid number of race meetings, and the signs once again look promising for the future. An eleven round Thunder Down Under (TDU) series with a couple of other stand alone events and some new names on the winners list all suggest

the class is starting to turn the corner.

Redline.The 07/08 season kicked off late in December with the opening round of the TDU series with a healthy 13 cars on hand to commence the new cham-pionship at Ballarat’s famous Redline raceway.Former Super Rod racers Garry and Shaun Toulmin joined the class (with their cars still sporting Super Rod style bodies), along with rookies Eddie Iver-mee (Bryan Windmills Colac #8) and Damian Falkingham (Geelong Colour World #9).

Class Stalwart Phil Jenkins (P & S Automotive #3) won the opening heat of the night, while 3rd generation Hot Rod racer Andrew Howard (Caged Racing Products #13) scorched to the win in heat two. Shaun Toulmin (Bellarine Exhaust Centre #73) loved his move to the SDAV division scoring his first ever heat win in heat 3. How-ard then came from deep in the pack to win the final heat and earn himself the top qualifying position.

One of the unique things about the SDAV rods is that they conduct a coin toss to see whether or not to invert the feature grid. In the flip of a coin Howard went from pole position to 9th

with only the two rookies behind him. Rod Smith (Complete Signs/Major En-gine Reconditioning #14) benefited from the toss to start from pole

For 15 laps the fast drivers of Howard, Jenkins and Shaun Toulmin would try to storm through the field but that wasn’t easy with the even spread of ability this season throughout the cate-gory.Smith had got the jump at the start with Kali Hovey (Dandenong Iron Foundry #22) right there with him and

Speedway Drivers Association of Victoria Hot Rods – season review.

Former Super Rodder, Shaun Toulmin finally savoured the sweet taste of success in front of home town family and friends at Redline Raceway - Ballarat.

From Sprintcars, to Super Rods to Hot Rods. Allan Pitcher, “pitches in” his neat Racer Imports machine at Wangarratta City Raceway enrout to victory.



the veteran Ray Welsh (Donna’s Hair Design #75) also on the pace. The top 3 led comfortably driving at a pace that was making it difficult for the back markers to chase them down. On lap 9 Dean West (#4 Blackwoods Engineer-ing) pulled infield with brake troubles whilst finally on lap 11 Howard was able to get past Welsh and into 3rd.Smith however drove a fast, clean and sensible race to lead all 15 laps and bring his racecar home for his first SDAV feature victory with Hovey driv-ing her own fantastic race in what was a great start for the TDU Series. How-ard was third whilst Shaun Toulmin spun on the last lap dropping him out of the finishers. 4th was Welsh followed by Garry Toulmin (Shaun Toulmins Speedway Spares & Fuel #72), Mario Nastasi (Mamma Teresa Pizza & Pasta Restaurant #5), Phil Jenkins, Ivermee and Falkingham.

The next meeting would be the Victo-rian Title at Stawell and despite being expected to sit out the season due to injuries received in the last state title held at Rushworth, late last season, three time and defending champion Shaun Walsh (Mega Auto’s/Buildcon Demolitions #1) made a return to the cockpit. Walsh’s return really spiced up the event both on and off the track (see breakout) in a night of huge drama and incidents that was most likely Walsh’s last run in the SDAV divi-sion.

Racin’ at the basin saw Tony Green score the first heat win from Walsh

while his brother, Andrew Howard won heat two. Ivermee rolled his way out of heat three which was won by Nas-tasi and Walsh was heading for the win in heat four until he made an error which allowed extreme veteran Welsh to take the win.Howard won heat five after some furi-ous dicing. Russell Hovey (Hoveys Fuel Stop Inverleigh #26) rolled in the final heat and numerous other spins oc-curred before Walsh took the final win.

The hard working Stawell Speedway club encountered problems just before the feature was to get started when the whole facilities lights shut down. Initial starts were aborted with Nastasi and Welsh having spins and when it finally got started Howard initially took the lead from Walsh, Shaun Toulmin and Jenkins.

Lap 5 provided lots of action with Garry Toulmin receiving a black flag, Kali Hovey having a spin in turn 3 and the race leaders Howard and Walsh both coming to a stop with the chief steward unable to determine who caused the stoppage and deciding to

send both cars to the rear of the field.As the race restarted Shaun Toulmin found himself in the lead with Jenkins and Nastasi behind him, however a few laps later Jenkins assumed the lead from Toulmin.Around the half way point another rac-ing incident resulted in an altercation between Russell Hovey and Walsh with both drivers receiving black flags for un-sportsmanlike behaviour.Once again the facility’s lights man-aged to shut down and at the re-start there was again disagreement be-tween some drivers as to their starting positions, especially from Howard who thought he was in a top 3 position.When the race got underway again Jenkins had the undisputed lead and he went on to win his 2nd Victorian title with his first being back in the 98/99 season, from Shaun Toulmin in his first season in the category. Nastasi took 3rd then came Howard, Kali Hovey and Falkingham.

Jenkins had this to say after the event. “I’d very much like to thank Stawell Speedway Club for the support they gave us to run the event. I’d like to thank my crew Daryl, Chris and Kirsty and my partner Lynne, and my spon-sors Tony Delmo Radiators and Cus-tom Boats. It was a tough final out there and I’m chuffed to beat these young bucks and keep them on their toes. We still have more drivers to join us with race cars in the coming weeks and it’s a great time to be in the SDAV class.”

Stawell –Victorian Championship.

Another of the impressive rookies was Colac’s Eddie Ivermee.



Portland.The rods continued their march across the state with their next round at Port-land’s Southern 500 speedway.Rookie Ivermee bounced back from his previous rollover to blast around the outside and win the opening heat on a wet track. Shaun Toulmin and Kali Hovey won the next two, drier, heats.

The field was fully inverted and as the green flag dropped Green led from Jenkins, Toulmin and West. Early in the race Jenkins washed up a little high and allowed Toulmin and West to go through. Green led for the first 5 laps before having a slight lose allow-ing Toulmin and West to slip past leav-ing Green settling in behind them. This is how positions stayed for the rest of the feature race as Shaun Toulmin went on to record his first feature win from West who finished in the top 3 of a feature for the first time followed by Green, Jenkins, Hovey and Welsh.

Simpson.Round three of the TDU series saw Howard back in action and winning all three of the heats.

After another full inversion for the fea-ture grid, third place starter Hovey took the early race lead whilst West snared the 2nd spot before the end of lap 1 ahead of Howard. The three

were putting on some close and pacey racing for the Simpson crowd. Howard moved into 2nd by lap 6 and snuck past Hovey on lap 7 to bring home the win in a short 8 lap final. Hovey held off

West, Ivermee, Welsh and Garry Toul-min.

Rosedale.Howard and Kali Hovey swapped the lead a couple of times in the opening heat of round four of the latest TDU round before Howard took the che-quered flag. Howard repeated the vic-tory in heat two while Shaun Toulmin scored the final heat win. Newcomer Glenn Lawless (brother of Sprintcar racer Craig) made his class debut.

For once being top qualifier was a bo-nus with no inversion of the field for

the feature.As the green flag waved the field away it was Howard who quickly assumed the top spot ahead of Nastasi and Shaun Toulmin. When Toulmin took

2nd on the 4th lap he was able to stick his nose in right under Howard a num-ber of times. The top 3 stayed as they were whilst back in the field Jenkins and Kali Hovey tried to keep pace.On lap 11 Toulmin managed to spin coming out of the 2nd turn and this allowed Nastasi through for the 2nd

spot whilst Toulmin continued on back in 3rd. Front runner Howard had clean air between himself and the field and took the win from Nastasi, Shaun Toul-min, Jenkins, Kali Hovey, Garry Toul-min and Ray Welsh.

Redline.For the second time this season and the first time this year the Rods took to Redline Raceway. Former Super Rod and Sprintcar racer Allan Pitcher (Premier Floats/Racer Imports #7) added his name to the ranks as did Stephen Robertson.

Howard was in the mood to continue his recent domination until a distribu-tor cap problem derailed his whole night while leading the first heat. This allowed Shaun Toulmin to win. West then led every lap of heat two and Victorian champion Jenkins took out the third and final heat.

Leading the feature race away was Kali Hovey as she led West and Smith. Lap 3 saw Shaun Toulmin take 3rd spot

Class stalwart Mario Nastasi in action.

Sprintcar bound Andrew Howard in a beautifully controlled powerslide.



away from Smith before skipping by West into second on lap 4. By lap 5 it was Toulmin leading Hovey and West and these positions stayed the same until lap 12 when Smith took 3rd and West started to fade backwards.During the race Green (The Bush In General Store #34) pulled out with steering issues and Lawless with me-chanical problems. Shaun Toulmin went on to win in front of home town friends and family from Hovey who drove a fine race to keep Smith at bay behind her. Then came Jenkins, Garry Toulmin, West, Nastasi, Ivermee, Welsh and Robertson (PPG #69).

Super Rod Cup.Annually the SDAV and the Super Rods get together for the running of the Super Rod cup, as both classes, apart from body styles, run very similar specifications.

Former multiple state champion and now Super Rod racer Jason Kavanagh was back behind the wheel of an SDAV rod having taken over Nastasi’s #5. Kavanagh won the first heat while Howard took third in the second stanza.Howard then won heat four and Kavanagh took heat five. Howard was again third in the final heat but only half a car length behind the leader.

With no inversion Howard would start from position 2 with Kavanagh 5th, Shaun Toulmin 11th, Ivermee 12th

and Garry Toulmin 15th.Howard was able to use the momen-tum of the highline coming out of posi-tion two to jump to an early lead, fol-lowed by Darryl Nelson and Leigh Podger. They raced in this order until lap six when two the cautions flag flew.From then on the final went non stop to the chequered flag with Howard having a handy lead as a group of five cars who diced furiously putting on one of the best rod races seen at the Warrnambool complex.

Howard went on to take a well de-served win never having put a foot wrong all night to secure his name on the Honour Roll along with father Chris Howard and brother Shaun Walsh. Kavanagh crossed the line in 5th but was later relegated to rear of field af-ter hitting the cone at the restart. Shaun Toulmin (7th) and Ivermee, (11th) completed the SDAV runners.

Nyora.For the first time in two years the SDAV rods were back at Nyora’s racy little action track.Smith led the first heat early until he smacked the wall as did Nastasi who hit it much harder and was later taken to hospital. Jenkins survived the car-nage to win the heat.Kali Hovey almost won heat two, which fell to Howard, but she did how-ever take the third heat win after Shaun Toulmin spun away his lead.

Sadly that was as far as they got when Mother Nature put a dampener on things and with an impending curfew

that was it.

Trevor Podger Memorial.The Trevor Podger Memorial at Simp-son Speedway is the other high profile event that brings the Super Rod and SDAV groups together. Eight SDAV teams contested the event against the numerically stronger Super Rod contin-gent.

Former Super Rod racer now turned SDAV member Pitcher got the heat

Gippsland’s Dean West was a steady improver and is knocking on the door of his first feature win.



wins off well taking the first heat from Howard. Kali Hovey then led home a quartet of SDAV cars in heat 2. The best SDAV result was Garry Toulmin's third place in heat three while Pitcher doubled up in heat four leading home another former super rodder in Andrew Moorfoot in a new 10 lap record. Howard almost matched Pitchers lap record on the way to the heat five win, and the Shaun Toulmin completed an almost clean sweep of heat wins scoring in heat six.

The first five positions in the feature were filled by SDAV cars with Pitcher and Howard sharing the front row.The race track was super quick as had been proven by the heat times and right from the time the green flag dropped the driver sweeping all before him for the night, Allan Pitcher, took off with Howard in tow but unable to real him in. As the race unfolded Jenkins pulled infield with a flat tyre whilst Moorfoot suffered brake failure. Kali Hovey lost power-ing steering and headed into the mid-dle out of harms way whilst Super Rod race driver Geoff Leigh moved forward into 3rd.At the chequered flag it was a quinella for the SDAV with Pitcher winning from Howard whilst Leigh stood up for the Super Rods in a fan-tastic race for him. Shaun Toulmin was the only other SDAV finisher in eighth.

Moama.The SDAV Crew accepted an invitation to support the SRA Sprintcars at Moama in late March, and unfortunately it was once again interfered with by the weather. Before this however, there was plenty of action with some great racing and a huge wreck.

After hauling six cars up on the back of one of his company’s trucks, Rus-sell Hovey led the first heat away before Smith eventually worked his way through to take the win. Pitcher continued his good form winning the second heat.

The third heat of the night had plenty of action. Welsh led the first lap and then Pitcher took over a position that he held until the race was red flagged. As Pitcher was about to lap Andrew Moorfoot (#64), Moorfoots left front wheel came off and he and Pitcher made contact and slewed sideways together. Ron Jones, having a steer of his own car which is nor-mally driven by Howard got caught up in the melee and endured a spec-tacular series of flips after riding Pitchers wheel (see photo sequence). Vision of this huge flip can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcq_clRrLl

Thanks to the rain neither the final heat nor the feature could be run.

Wangarratta.The next meeting was again shared with the Sprintcars but this time was at Wangarratta City Raceway. The tracks profile and more dirt based surface lends itself to a looser style of driving and both Howard and Pitcher held their machines in beautiful, long, full lock, fully controlled slides (see photos).

Pitcher and Smith won the opening pair of heats, and then Pitcher snatched a last turn win away from Jenkins in the final heat.

The field settled in for the all impor-tant feature race showdown with the driver to beat being pole sitter Pitcher who started ahead of Howard and Smith.The action was clean and fast at the front with Pitcher, Howard, Smith and West settling in and similar action further back in the pack where this evenly matched race category pro-duced great side by side and slide by slide open wheel speedway action. On lap 4 Kali Hovey spun and on the same lap Jenkins slowed with a bro-ken Jacobs ladder.Pitcher though was never headed as he took the points comfortably after a rare, top points to the front start. Young Gun ‘Howard’ led home Smith, West, Jenkins, Welsh, Garry Toulmin, Ivermee, Nastasi, Kali Hovey and Robertson.

Rushworth.After a scrappy start to the first heat on a greasy track, Jenkins led all the way to win. West then triggered a melee on the first lap of heat two which saw Smith roll-over. Howard

It’s not hard to see that Garry Toulmin is a former Super Rod Racer.



then led until he spun on a restart which allowed Nastasi to take the win. Howard then scorched through from mid pack to take the win in heat three and then came from further back in the final heat to take the win. This was as good as it got for Howard as a split fuel tank ruled him out of the feature.

An inverted feature left Russell Hovey and Robertson on the front row.In scenes reminiscent of days gone by, Hovey led ol’ ‘Ricochet’ Ray Welsh in the early part of the race.Smith who started in 6th got up into 2nd

spot by lap 6 of the 15 lap feature chasing Hovey who was a quarter of a lap in front of the field. A yellow light back in the field resulted in a restart with Smith right on Hovey’s back bumper bar. Smith jumped into the lead on the 7th lap whilst Russell Hovey and Welsh held on in the minor plac-ings a little longer. Shaun Toulmin from way back in 9th starting spot snatched 3rd on the 10th lap and the top three remained Smith, Russell Hovey and Shaun Toulmin for the last 5 laps. Back in fourth was Jenkins also doing well from 8th spot in the field and getting by Welsh late in the race. Lawless, Robertson and Kali Hovey also finished.

For Smith it was a wonderful change of fortunes having gone from crashed and looking as if he may need to park

on the trailer, to completing the night with a feature race victory. Smith had this too say “I’d just like to thank the Hovey’s and everybody in the club for pitching in to get me back on track. It’s a great bunch we have and this happens time and time again where we pitch in to keep each other going. To my sponsors also I very much ap-preciate your continued support and to Rushworth thanks for having us once again and see you all next year.”

Laang.Round 11 of the TDU series was con-tested at the Laang International (sic) Speedway.Ivermee led heat one early before Howard assumed the lead and took the chequered flag. Jenkins was then able to hold out Howard for the win in heat two but no one could stop him from leading every lap of the final heat.

With no inversion Howard would start from pole alongside Jenkins.The top 3 this night at Laang of How-ard, Jenkins and Toulmin are amongst the most consistent of the seasons SDAV race drivers and they put on fantastic racing out front with Howard getting a rather large lead ahead of the other two and powering on home for victory ahead of Jenkins and Toul-min. Welsh came home 4th in this event ahead of Kali and Russell Hovey.

Mortlake.The final meeting of the season was the Legends Cup at Mortlake.Pitcher, along with Howard, had been the inform driver since joining the ranks and this was affirmed when he led the opening heat for the entire distance. Smith did likewise on his way to the win in heat two.

The feature race was a little low on numbers with Welsh going home due to illness and Ivermee and Moorfoot unable to fix issues from the start of the night, however the top 4 cars were going to give us a cracking race over the 12 lap distance.The race started with our top 4 drivers quickly settling down and setting a ripping pace. Pitcher certainly had the set up whilst Shaun Toulmin was still chasing his optimum set up. On lap 5 a

Broadford’s Rod Smith had an up and down season savouring feature wins and frustrating wrecks.



spin in the 3rd turn by Shaun Toulmin left Garry Toulmin stranded as he ploughed into Shaun. Damage ended their night whilst Russell Hovey pushed up into 4th place ahead of Kali Hovey.On lap 11 when Kali Hovey spun, the race was declared and given to Pitcher who had led every lap on the way to victory in the ‘Legends Cup’ ahead of Smith, Jenkins, Russell and Kali Hovey.

Presentation Night.Following a resurgent season, the club conducted their presentation night where not surprisingly Andrew Howard was presented with the Rolling Thun-der E-Magazine trophy as the Thunder Down Under series champion. Phil Jen-kins received the runner up Rolling Thunder Raceway trophy and Shaun Toulmin collected 3rd place courtesy of JohBen P/L. Fourth place went to Kali Hovey courtesy of Mega Auto Parts and Ray Welsh was fifth thanks to P & S Automotive.

Despite his brilliant form generally, Howard was beaten to the SDAV Over-all points championship by Victorian Champion Phil Jenkins. As with the TDU series Shaun Toulmin, Kali Hovey and Ray Welsh completed the top five.

Photographer (and e-mag contributor via his Caption Photography) Mark Lynch was recognised as the club per-son of the year. Apart from recording photographically the racing action of the division Mark likes to get involved and helps out whoever he can when they need a little assistance.

Gippsland’s Dean West took a step or two further up the podium this season and was rewarded with the Most Im-proved driver award. Further upgrades to his equipment may see West on the top step next season.

Shaun Toulmin’s victory at Redline and his consistently strong finishes saw him take home the rookie of the year award, leaving Glenn Lawless to re-ceive the Encouragement award. Kali Hovey took out the best presented team and Rookie Eddie Ivermee was given the unluckiest driver gong.

The SDAV would like to thank every-one associated with the club in par-ticular its great sponsors Mega Auto Parts, Ribeau Interstate Transport, Tony Delmo Radiators and Bob Fisher Automotive.

By: Brett Swanson with Dean Thomson and Linda Verhoeven (Super Rod Media).

Photographer, Darren Win-ter caught this fantastic se-ries of snaps of car owner Ron Jones trying to demol-ish the #13 Hot Rod nor-mally driven by Andrew Howard.

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HILL FAMILY RACING.

HILLY JUNIOR STEPPING UP TO 3 LITRE RACING

Nyora Speedbowl on June 22nd pro-vided all the information Russell Hill needed in order to make a decision on the category he would assist son Nick Hill to enter into and go racing in dur-ing 2008/09. after Hilly Jnr made a fist of it racing against the men for the very first time since stepping up from the junior ranks.

For the Southern 2000 event, Hill Jnr stepped out in the 3 Litre VS Commo-dore normally driven by his father and proceeded to thrill the crowd with his first outing in one of the leading 3 Litre cars in Victoria.

A tricky day greeted the drivers with rain surrounding the speedway, how-ever Nyora and its volunteers got the track up to scratch.

Previously Nick had some runs in the bigger and harder to handle XF Ford Standard Saloon the family owns that didn’t quiet go to plan, however it was now or never that he had to produce some sort of results in a car with all the mod cons and much better han-dling that would give his father the chance to make some hard decisions.

In his first heat for the day which in-cluded the Super Sedan of Steve Red-decliffe, Hill Jnr came from the rear of the field to take second ahead of Mark Miles in a Standard Saloon and Daniel Argoon in an Open Independent.

This of course elated his father. “This first heat was beyond my expectations and I would have been happy for him just to get the car across the line straight in his first senior heat race. We will now go set the car up and make the most of this start to the day.”

The second heat for Nick Hill resulted in a 4th place finish again with Redde-cliffe taking the win this time ahead of Simon Bent and Eric Miles.

A place in the final was assured with a top 5 finish in his last heat and Hilly Jnr didn’t disappoint with a third place behind former Australian Street Stock champion Daniel Barton and Victorian Open Independent champion Steve Young.

The results gave enough points not only for Hill to qualify in the 50 lap feature event, but to start in 10th spot behind names the likes of Reddecliffe, Darren Tindal, Troy Simpson, Simon Bent, Brad McClure, Justin Alberni and Daniel Barton.

In the feature itself Hilly Jnr handled himself well getting into a positional stoush with McClure, Simpson, Alberni and Barton, running panel to panel with the boys before rain put an early end to the race with Hill in 6th spot behind winner Reddecliffe, Tindal, Bent, Simpson and Alberni.

Hilly Jnr was wrapt to say the least “It was great fun out there. Nyora gave us a brilliant race track today and to be racing with the quality of these car’s up the front was awesome and a learning experience for whatever dad

get’s me to race next year.”On the back of the result at Nyora, Hill Family Racing have stepped out and purchased the Victoria # 2 VL Com-modore racecar of Luke Nash for young Nick to race in the coming sea-son. The car has been Vic 2 for the past two seasons finishing behind Rodney Burr both times.

Russell Hill had this to say “Niko showed maturity and patience beyond his age at the Nyora 50 lapper and I always believed he had it within him to display that sort of driving and as a result Sharon and I are only too glad to give him a crack in the 3 Litre and run as a two car team.”

Hill Family Racing Sponsors:Ramsdale Wreckers Pakenham Allcare Exhaust Horvath Transport Services.Team Galley MotorsportGB RaceCars B & H Scrap RecyclersDaylesford Dyno D.A.M Towing

Nick Hill at Nyora for Southern 2000 © CLT Photography 08 Cassie Tuckett



Formula Motorsports is preparing the team for the up-coming 08/09 All Star season. The cars have been fully rebuilt after last season and the two ASCS engines previ-ously used by Paul Solomon and Troy Little have also been rebuilt and upgraded by Wells Racing Engines in the USA.

Brodix Tournament of Champions Whilst in the USA, Troy Little, as part of last season’s prize in the All Star Sprintcar Series, won an invitation to the Brodix Tournament of Champions which was held at Knoxville Raceway on the 4th of August. Troy won his heat and managed to get as high as 7th place in the A Feature before finishing a very credible 11th place overall. Troy in the Formula Motorsports eagle #20AU (pictured below) was sponsored by Kimbo Transport, Aussie Stop Leak, and Rolling Thunder Raceway.

Formula Motorsports team for the 08/09 season will again feature Paul Solomon(V7), Chris Solomon (V83) and Bob Forbes (V27). Paul and Chris will race in all rounds of the 360 “ALL Star Series” and step up their participation in the SRA Series and other open events throughout Vic-toria. Formula Motorsports will again supply Troy Little with an ASCS engine for the Aussie Stop Leak, Kimbo Transport eagle #N20.

The livery of the V7 and the V83 cars will be changed to accommodate some new sponsors in addition to the existing sponsors who include: racetrader.com.au, Daytec Australia,Rolling Thunder Raceway. Rolling Thunder Racing E-Mag Commercial Automatics. Grizzly Dyno Shocks.

Formula Motorsports Team News

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Issue 3 Rolling Thunder e Mag