November 18 2019
After four rounds, the SCA show rolled into Winton last Friday for their fifth and last round of competition for 2019.
9 cars made up the field, seven were either OzTruck, Stock Car (NASCAR) or GTA and the remaining two were invitational cars.
Four OzTrucks, Two Stock Cars and One GTA plus one Supercar and an FJ Holden.
This report is based on reports posted on World of AUSCAR and pictures and video from Stock Cars Australia.
Practice taken place on Friday morning though not all cars participated in them which is not unusual.
Practice
Practice 1 times
1. S. Chilby – 1:35:9930
2. B. Mitchell – 1:37:4195
3. D. Burgess – 1:59:7255
Practice 2 times
Derick Hossak – 1:43:4337.
Practice 3 times
1. B. Mitchell – 1:30.0705
2. D. Burgess – 1:32.9621
3. D. Hossak – 1:42.1239
Qualifying
Brett Mitchell set the pace after clocking a best lap of 1:29.0245 with Stephen Chilby joining him on the front row.
Whilst the field was spread out by a couple of seconds in places, it set up the possibilities of races within races for example the OzTrucks of Chilby and Burgess and the two Stock Cars of O’Hara and Crisp.
1. B. Mitchell – 1:29.0245
2. S. Chilby – 1:30.6953
3. D. Burgess – 1:30.9970
4. D. Hender – 1:32.9491
5. T. Crisp – 1:34.0784
6. Z. O’Hara – 1:34.3403
7. R. Marchese – 1:35.1601
8. M Heppleston – 1:47.9034
Race 1
Stephen Chilby in the #226 was the winner of Race 1.
Brett Mitchell came home second and he was followed by David Hender to round out the Top 3.
Brett Mitchell became the SCA lap record holder at Winton by clocking a lap of 1:29.5426 and beating Steve Coulter’s 2018 record of 1:30.2555.
Stephen Chilby also ran a lap that was under the old record time which shown that it was going to be a competitive weekend.
Finishing order
- S. Chilby
- B. Mitchell
- D. Hender
- R. Marchese
- Z. O’Hara
- D. Burgess
- T. Crisp
- M. Heppleston
- D. Hossak
Race 2
Stephen Chilby makes it two from two to finish Saturday’s proceedings.
David Hender finished second in his GTA with Robert Marchese finishing third in his OzTruck.
The tightest battle on the track was between Zac O’Hara and Trevor Crisp with Zac finishing 1.5 seconds in front of Trevor.
DNF’s bit into the field with Danny Burgess, Brett Mitchell and Derrick Hossak all unfortunate retirements.
Finishing order
1. S. Chilby
2. D. Hender
3. R Marchese
4. Z. O’Hara
5. T. Crisp
6. M. Heppleston
7. D. Hossak
8. B. Mitchell
9. D. Burgess
Race Three
Stephen Chilby started Sunday the exact same way that he started Saturday, with a win.
Eight cars had taken the green flag after Derrick Hossak in the #62 was unfortunately a non starter.
Brett Mitchell came second for the second time and David Hender finished third for the second time as well.
Danny Burgess recovered from his Race 2 DNF to finish in fourth place ahead of Robert Marchese.
They were followed by Zac O’Hara and Mick Heppleston whilst Trevor Crisp went out of the race on Lap 5.
Brett Mitchell had the fastest lap of the race with a 1:29.2934 which was again a new lap record in SCA.
Finishing order
S. Chilby
B. Mitchell
D Hender
D. Burgess
R. Marchese
Z. O’Hara
M. Heppleston
T. Crisp
D Hossak
Race Four
The last race of weekend and for the season.
Stephen Chilby is aiming to clean sweep the race weekend and Brett Mitchell is aiming to end his Championship season with a win.
Those at Winton got treated to a great race with Stephen Chilby holding on to win by 1.03 seconds.
Brett Mitchell may not have won the race but he was champion and he broke his lap record again with a 1:28.9875 lap.
What makes the 1:28.9875 lap special is that he qualified on Saturday with a best lap of 1:29.0245 and everyone loves race pace being better than qualifying pace.
Finishing Order
S. Chilby
B. Mitchell
D. Hender
D. Burgess
R. Marchese
Z. O’Hara
M. Heppleston – DNS
T. Crisp – DNS
D. Hossak – DNS
Conclusion
It was a great weekend for Stock Cars Australia and a great way to end the 2019 season, the first under the guidance of Zac O’Hara.
Mick Heppleston is expected in 2020 to go from his Holden to a Ford Thunderbird that was run in Australian NASCAR boosting the regularly driven Stock Car contingent to four if the #1 VT Commodore and the always popular #22 Dodge is raced next season.
Anyone with a NASCAR can join and with several out there, the field can easily expand.
Next season could see Stephen Chilby, Brett Mitchell, Danny Burgess, Robert Marchese and James Burge all putting on a great show in their OzTrucks and with a number of OzTrucks running in Australia plus a couple of that out there for sale then this number could expand easily.
There are a number of GTA cars for under $30,000 waiting to be brought, Corey Gurney had a great debut in his #43 in Round 4 and hopefully we will see some of the GTA gang return like they did for rounds during the 2019 season.
No AUSCAR has joined the competition yet but the invitation always stands as it is known that several have been driven around for track days etc.
This concludes this report on all the Winton action, thank you to all SCA fans for stopping by this year and we hope to see you next year.
Aussie Stock Car News 