The last weekend in April saw the running of the 59th Australian Sprintcar title at Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway.
Some of the South Australians competing over the weekend were Mount Gambier’s Steven Lines, Daniel Pestka driving the Stark family car from Port MacDonnell and Matt Egel, while just across the Border from Portland Brock Hallett.
There was plenty of action on night one from all competitors and it was not disappointing for the locals with Hallet finishing fifth in heat one, Lines third in heat two, Pestka second in heat three and Egel coming home seventh in the same race.
Lines put in a better drive in heat six coming home in second behind the Aussie #1 of Veal.
Hallet locked in fourth in heat five, while Pestka finished fourth and Egel rounding the top 10 in heat seven, leading Pestka to start out of grid position three and Egel sat back in 13th in the night one B-main preliminary.
Both drivers raced cleanly and Pestka impressed to advance in fourth while Egel finished ninth to miss out the main event.
In the A-Main Preliminary Lines was started in ninth and had Hallett for close company in 12th along with Pestka in 18th.
They all kept out of trouble with Lines scoring a top 10 finish while Hallett and Pestka came home 13th and 15th respectively.
Night two was a better one for the travelling convey led by Egel who soared to victory followed by Pestka and Lines who completed the heat 9 placings, while Hallett was home in fourth in the following race.
This put Egel in grid position three for the B-Main and he converted it to finish second to transfer to the A-Main in 16th where Lines and Pestka were out of grid positions seven and nine respectively.
The feature started well for the South East drivers moving up places from the green flag.
But on lap 15 it all went wrong for Lines, pulling to the in field and his title contention was done after mechanical issues, leaving the hard yards to Pestka, Hallet and Egel to fly the flag for the Limestone Coast.
The latter battled hard on a slick track and the best of the South Australian’s was the S27 of Pestka coming home in seventh to cap off a good weekend.
Hallett also a good night and was in the top 10 with a ninth place finish while Egel battled hard for 15th.
The night belonged to the N47 of Marcus Dumsney with a brilliant drive from eighth place on the grid picking off cars lap by lap in a stellar season finish.
Dumsney will now pack his bags and head to the United States of America and run some meetings over there before coming back and placing the A1 on the car for the new Australian season.
