2020 in Review

December 31 2020

The 2020 Stock Cars Australia season started in February at Wakefield Park with five OzTrucks, two Invitationals, one Stock Car and one GTA on the grid.

Stephen Chilby started 2020 campaign the way he ended the 2019 one, with a win as Brett Mitchell picked up three seconds in a row with Corey Gurney grabbing a third for the first time in Race 1 and got another in Race 3.

It was Burge vs Chilby in Race 4 with James Burge throwing everything at Stephen Chilby including recording a lap record of 1:02.3657 but it wasn’t enough as Stephen swept the weekend to take a good lead in the championship over Brett Mitchell and Corey Gurney.

While this was going on, Lachlan Gardner in the #1 OzTruck Tundra was at Queensland Raceway competing in the QR Sports & Sedans series and came home a big winner by winning four out of the five races on the weekend including the above thriller in Race 4.

Brett Mitchell and Stephen Chilby went to Winton in March to compete in the Thunder Sports Cup series and Stephen came home with four wins from four races to have eight wins in just three months.

Stephen’s run at weekend perfection nearly came unstuck as you see in the video thumbnail. the #861 is backwards and Brett Mitchell is in the dirt on the inside and you can see on the outside the orange of Stephen’s #226 OzTruck and had the #861 went to the outside it is possible the #226 would of been wadded up.

QR Sports & Sedans went to Lakeside on March 14 and 15 with Lachlan Gardner, Graham Struber and Greg McIntyre all in OzTrucks with Lachlan winning all four of the races held on that weekend.

Around this time, Motorsport Fan started uploading videos on YouTube containing AUSCAR and Australian NASCAR races with over 50 videos now available for fans to watch including the one above.

Scott Pierce purchased the #9 Commodore and suddenly the potential field of Stock Cars for 2021 had grown to five (#1, #9, #22. #27 and #41).

There was exciting news in May when Anthony Trevaskis was announced as the new owner of the #88 Ford Fusion, this means that there is the possibility of six Stock Cars available to race in 2021 assuming a certain virus goes away.

OzTruck racing action returned to Queensland in August with Lachlan Gardner taking home two wins and two second place finishes to give him ten wins from thirteen races in the OzTruck.

September saw the return of Bob Middleton in the #85 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for the first time since he taken the #85 around Winton in 2002 in the last round billed as V8 Stock Cars (according to Natsoft).

September 26 and 27 was the resumption of the Stock Cars Australia season with the OzTrucks of Stephen Chilby, Brett Mitchell, Danny Burgess and Robert Marchese all going to Sydney Motorsport Park to share the track with the TA2 field.

Stephen won his fifth and sixth races for the season before a thirty-five second penalty shuffled the order in the third race and put Brett Mitchell into the lead, a lead he would keep for the rest of the race.

It was three wins from four races for Stephen Chilby after he picked up the Race 4 win giving him seven wins from eight races with one round remaining in the season.

It was announced on November 6 that Cole Davis would join Stock Cars Australia in his Ford Falcon AUSCAR, his #77 was formerly driven by Jason Morrell in the late 1990’s and the car was rescued from becoming an paddock ornament at Winton.

There was a sudden interest in AUSCAR as several AUSCAR’s changed hands or restoration projects had begun, whether this means we will see more AUSCAR’s in Stock Cars Australia is unknown but it would be nice if a half dozen or so could be in the same place being seen by crowds of curious people.

November 21 and 22 saw the racing action return to Wakefield Park for the last round of the season, the four OzTrucks were joined by four Invitationals to make it a field of eight for the round despite Victoria still being closed off for a couple more days.

Brayden Willmington and Matt Drane’s introduction to SCA wasn’t the one they hoped for as both had DNF’s with Matt’s mechanical issue enough to put him out for the weekend after qualifying fifth in his VK Commodore whilst Brayden got back into action after having a fuel issue.

Brayden Willmington would finish fourth in Race 2 before issues forced him to retire from the last two races of the weekend but overall it was a successful debut and he appears to be very happy with Stock Cars Australia.

Derek Hocking would finish third in Race 1 before having a DNS in Race 2 followed by DNF’s in races 3 and 4.

It was a clean sweep for Stephen Chilby to take his win total to eleven out of the twelve race season, Brett Mitchell swept the weekend for second place finishes whilst Derek Hocking, Danny Burgess and Robert Marchese had all taken home a third place finish.

The Stock Cars Australia season was over but for Stephen Chilby, Brett Mitchell and Danny Burgess the racing would continue over at Sandown as they raced in both the AMRS Invited Sedans event and the PROMAXX Performance Exhausts TA2 Muscle Cars.

David Hender returned to race his #53 GTA in the PROMAXX Performance Exhausts TA2 Muscle Cars races, the OzTrucks and the GTA gave their competition a good run for their money.

World of AUSCAR has done well this year, last year this site recorded 1,994 visits and this year it has 3,801 visits, we have 74 likes on Facebook which is nice as anything over one is wonderful as something right is done and there are still a lot of things left to do before our story is told and the book is closed.

The year 2020 may be remembered for COVID-19 but for some of us it will be remembered as a year of growth for Stock Car racing in Australia, we saw great drives, new car owners, new plans, new challenges and hopefully 2021 will be a friendly year allowing a full season and all of the promises of 2020 come on over to 2021.