Cecil, Heseltine, Greenwood and Degoldi win on opening night

By Dean Thompson

Redline Raceway finally began their 22/23 season of Speedway on Saturday night to a very full house of speedway starved Greater Ballarat fans.

During a terrific show, the four individuals that won their class of racing include Redline’s own member Dean Jenkins who won the Street Stock final, visiting East Gippsland based Sprintcar racer Adam Greenwood won his class, Dean Heseltine won the Australian Motor Contest Association class and Harry Cecil from Poowong won the Junior Standard Saloon class in their first ever appearance at Redline Raceway.

During the night, the Street Stock competitors, whilst running for individual glory also, were grouped into teams and competed for team victory. Belmont Speedway Drivers Club Vice President likes to think he was Captain of what has been dubbed the ‘Burger Kings’, and his team of Scott Secombe (the real Captain) and Josh Davey took the win ahead of Ron Davey, Jamie Crutchley and Aaron White, with Jo-Ann Scott, Dean Jenkins, and Matt Glab in third place.

In Sprintcar racing the LS Cup was the big prize, and whilst Delacombe-based racer Sam Wren and Bacchus Marsh speedster Steve Horton were in the field, it would be Adam Greenwood from Stratford, a town on your trip you pass to get to Bairnsdale, that would take the win.

Greenwood won the first heat of the evening in front of Wren before Horton won the second in front of Brett Pope. Greenwood then won the fifteen-lap final that went green flag to chequered flag non-stop for a new distance record time for the class that will likely stand for a long time, as feature events are often twenty laps long. Greenwood defeated Pope, Alistair Bastian, Horton, and Wren.

Junior Standard Saloon competitors raced across six heat races with three allocated to each driver. With the class never having competed there, a new one lap record and ten lap record was set during the evening, and the host club is keen to see the class again and slot them in when the class is available, and Redline has a spot to fill.

Harry Cecil, the current Victoria 2 ranked racer after last season’s state title, is the lead driver this season on victories with last year’s champion now in adult racing. Cecil set a one lap fast time of 18.184, with the fastest five drivers all under the 18.5 second mark.

Nathan Miles won the first heat race of the night by a massive thirteen seconds. Beau Stuchbery from Bairnsdale then set the ten-lap record for the class at 3:04.960 just finishing half a second in front of Cecil. Jack Braz won heat three with Stuchbery again a winner in heat four by the smallest of margins 0.002 of a second as he pipped Zac Barwise at the line. Cecil then won the fifth heat race and the final qualifier was won by Miles for his second victory.

In feature event Miles from the front row with Stuchbery began in front of Jack Braz, Cecil, Chase Ingram, and Tom Braz with eight others behind the top six. Miles led the race up to lap eight with Cecil behind until things went wrong as the leading duo were side by side at the top end of the track and Miles was deemed to have spun on his own and sent to the rear of the field.

As Miles tried to come through the field again, he got tangled with traffic up on the outside of one of the backmarkers which put him into the wall, however not with terminal damage. Cecil went on to win in front of Jack Braz, Tom Braz, Stuchbery and Arthur Hutchinson.

Dean Heseltine continued his AMCA Nationals win streak of one every race season at Redline as far as he can remember after Justin Richardson, Heseltine and Heseltine again took race victories in the qualifiers. In the feature event Heseltine defeated Richardson, Kent Davey, Stephen Hopkins and Mick Kiraly Junior in the second round of the Barry Reidy Memorial tri series.

Racing in the Street Stock class with the extra team’s incentive saw competitors from the very best, to those still developing do their best not to let their teammates down. Scott Secombe took victory in the first heat race of the evening before Mitch Viney won the second. Scott Purdie was the third winner of the night before Dean Jenkins won the fourth qualifier. Jenkins became the only driver to win two heats winning in race five before Jason Degoldi won the sixth and final qualifier giving the host club five heat winners out of six for the evening.

For the feature event Degoldi, Jenkins, Purdie, Andrew Burgoyne, Secombe and White lined up as the top six in a fifteen car field. First of the fancied runners to exit the race was Purdie with damage to his car after getting boxed in behind a back marker and crashing into the car in front. At the ten-lap mark Degoldi was leading Secombe, Jenkins, Burgoyne and Crutchley. Ten laps later nothing much had changed with Degoldi taking victory over Secombe, Jenkins, Burgoyne and Crutchley.

Redline return with racing on the 18th of March with the King of the Mount feature event for the Street Stocks, plus the Victorian Modified Promotional Association for the Modified Sedans.