The most prestigious race on the Wingless Sprint calendar in South Australia is set to take place this Saturday night at Adelaide Motorsport Park, with the running of the 2016-17 season ENZED South Australian Title, and it is defending champion Joel Chadwick who heads the line-up.
If Chadwick’s recent form is anything to go by, then he will be extremely hard to beat heading into Saturday night’s event, with 24 drivers from across South Australia and into Victoria nominated. However, as with any title event, anything can happen and there are a host of talented drivers who would love to remove the SA # 1 from the tail tank of Chadwick’s black, white and green machine.
Along with Chadwick, the field includes a number of drivers who know how to get into victory lane, including previous Adelaide Motorsport Park Track Champions Robert Heard and Matthew Kennedy, along with the likes of Spencer Taylor, Michael Spoljaric, Darryl Sloan and Anthony Tapley, all of whom have won feature races so far this season.
The Victorian contingent is a strong one, with regular front-runners Travis Millar and Wayne Hurford, while the Mildura region in particular will be well represented with Anthony and Melissa McMillan, Jason Bolitho and Shaun McClure.
The South Australian Title comes hot on the heels of two nights of racing last weekend, with Friday night at Adelaide Motorsport Park and then a Saturday night meeting at Murray Bridge Speedway.
In what was the perfect tune up for the South Australian Title, Chadwick swept both nights of competition, with Spoljaric also having a good weekend with a second and a seventh-place finish over the two nights of racing.
After winning his final heat race and finishing behind Sloan in his second heat race, Chadwick was the top qualifier at Adelaide Motorsport Park and was never headed in the feature race, defeating Spoljaric and William Caruso.
Sloan, who had started from the front row, failed to finish the feature race after Taylor spun in front of Sloan as the pair battled for second place, which left Sloan with no other option but to slam into the turn four wall, subsequently sustaining enough damage to keep him out of contention for the remainder of the weekend. Kennedy, Bronson Mauro and Aaron Doe were the only other finishers.
At Murray Bridge Speedway, the field almost doubled with 18 drivers nominating for the event. Notable absentees were Dale Gesell and Sloan, due to their difficulties from the previous night.
The night began in ominous fashion as Chadwick won the opening heat race ahead of Heard and Caruso, with heat-race two going the way of Victorian veteran Peter Logue, as he capitalised on his front-row start to defeat Tapley and Taylor. The final heat of the night proved to be the most dramatic, as an incident involving Kennedy and Renee Pestka in turn two ended Pestka’s night prematurely, with the racer having sustained a heavily damaged front end.
For the second night in a row, Chadwick dominated the feature race, with Heard and Logue battling it out in entertaining fashion for the runner-up spot. Unfortunately, the race was cut a couple of laps shy of the scheduled distance, after David Cuppleditch was involved in a wild rollover in turn four. It was the second meeting in a row that Cuppleditch had ridden out a large wreck at Murray Bridge Speedway.
Chadwick was declared the winner, with Heard in second and Logue in third completing the podium ahead of Tapley, Joel Heinrich, Mildura’s Jay Brown, Spoljaric, Caruso, Kennedy and Doe in 10th.
SA Wingless Sprint Title Nominations (24):
S1 Joel Chadwick
S4 Travis Beasley
S6 Michael Ross
S8 Darryl Sloan
V8 Shaun McClure
S13 Dale Gesell
S16 Joel Heinrich
S19 Michael Spoljaric
S21 Matthew Kennedy
S24 Aaron Doe
S31 Casey Vanderstelt
S33 Brad Evans
S37 Anthony McMillan
S41 Bronson Mauro
S46 Spencer Taylor
S47 Anthony Tapley
S52 Jason Bolitho
S57 Robert Heard
S73 Melissa McMillan
V73 Wayne Hurford
S82 Greg Cunningham
S85 Trent Gravestock
V93 Travis Millar
S94 Haydyn Farrow
