PACES’, REYNOLDS & BUTCHER DOMINATE BUMPER GRID
Father and son duo, Simon & Aaron Pace, along with Canberra’s Daniel Reynolds have dominated round one of the 2022 NSW Formula Vee Championship each with multiple podiums across the weekend. But it was Simon Pace (Checkmate) who took the chequered flag in the trophy race on Sunday afternoon with just four tenths of a second separating Simon and Daniel Reynolds (Sabre), Aaron Pace (Jacer) made up the podium in third.
In the 1200 category Stephen Butcher (Stinger) continued his winning streak, where he not only qualified the fastest, but also claimed line honours in every race. Bernie Cannon (Kingfisher) also featured prominently after starting the season with a new engine, while category newcomer Andre Cortes (Jabaru) secured second place in the Sunday Trophy race.
Qualifying proved to be challenging with a massive twenty-nine cars taking to the track and while it may have proved difficult to get an uninterrupted flying lap in, the session remained under green flags. Aaron Pace (Jacer) claimed pole position with his father Simon locking out the front row. Other notable results included Mathew Pearce (Jacer) in sixth, but his luck didn’t continue with two DNF’s, and Curtis Porter (Jacer) who qualified eight and went on to deliver consistent fourth & fifth placings.
Newcomers Lachie Minneff (Jacer) qualified eighteenth, Tom Davey (Jacer) in twenty first and Adam Henderson (Sabre) in twenty fourth, all positions that they built on over the course of the weekend.
The other vehicle to make a prominent appearance at the weekend was the Wakefield Park Hyundai i30 N Line Safety Car which featured in all three races, but arguably the most spectacular incident resulting in a Safety Car was the catastrophic rear wheel failure on the #64 Jacer driven by John McDonald.
One of the standout performers of the weekend had to be rookie Hayden Crossland who, behind the wheel of the Jacer factory car, qualified tenth and finished a respectable sixth in race one and fifth in race two before coming together with Craig Sparke (Jacer) in race three at the fishhook after suffering brake knock off.
A BBQ was held on Saturday afternoon to award the 2021 season trophies and with a great roll out it was a great way to finish the days racing. While there are a few bent cars, we hope to see everyone at Round 2 scheduled for Sydney Motorsport Park on 9-10 April.