David Sinagra has won the WA State Title ahead of Charlie Brown and Matt Brown.
Collie Speedway specially prepared all 510 metres of their clay racing surface to suit a long program of 30 events, in which 38 competitors would contest the 2011-2012 F500’s WA State Title. The track was kept a little harder, and started the night a little drier, all initiated to keep the track from potentially getting a little chopped up; with four divisions of sedans supporting the event.
In what was to become a night free from the usual roll-overs and red-light stoppages synonymous with blue-ribbon events, the biggest wreck of the night unfortunately occurred during official practice. Making matters worse; it was visiting American teenager AJ Hopkins who suffered a failure in the steering gear of the Terry Kowal owned PMP chassis, causing the car to turn right at high-speed just as the car entered into turn one. The impact caused significant chassis damage and ended the night early for the likeable Hopkins; whom fortunately emerged relatively unscathed.
Heats began with young tyro Andrew Priolo winning from pole in H1. Charlie Brown won H2 after being gifted the win with Matt Brown making an uncharacteristic mistake turning the car around in turn four whilst leading. Charlie Brown in winning broke the 8 lap track record, held by Granny Higgs since 2003.
David Sinagra opened his account in H3, and lowered the track record by a further 3 seconds. Rising star Thomas Davies took the win in H4. H5 saw Jason Priolo run-down and drove the high-line around Sinagra for the heat win.
H6 and it was James Dawson with the win after Craig Bottrell was relegated 4 positions from the lead during a mid-race restart, Bottrell deeming to have broken the initial start in avoiding the pole cars banging wheels just before the green.
Wayne Dymock took the win in H7, with rookie driver Brock Nanovich winning H8. Matt Brown found the line first in H9, and Bronwyn Channing stole the show with a great drive to win H10. Steve Ellement was back to his winning ways in H11, with the car looking really good in the handling department, and it was Charlie Brown winning his second heat for the night in the final H12.
The B-Main was a great dice between Brendan Condren and Aaron Higgins, who raced side-by-side before Condren took the win ahead of Higgins, with Brad Warwick running third, and Brent Lockwood running 4th.
The Top 10 qualifiers for the A-Main were as follows: 1 Q1 Charlie Brown 2 4 Steven Ellement 3 28 David Sinagra 4 81 Jason Priolo 5 10 Andrew Priolo 6 29 Thomas Davies 7 56 Bronwyn Channing 8 20 Wayne Dymock 9 GLB4 Matt Brown 10 51 Jason Pryde
The second racing tragedy for the evening, after the unfortunate Hopkins incident during practice, was that which was about to unfold for Steve Ellement. During his final heat win, the #4 lost about a litre of oil from the Yamaha mill. Crews and the driver struggled to access an oil-tapping on the right-hand side of the motor, which runs from the main oil galley. It appears a failure of a simple O-ring seal, and the difficulty in easily accessing it prevented the Ellement team from joining the field for the A-Main.
With the field reshuffled it was still Charlie Brown on pole and David Sinagra now on the front row.
On the green and Sinagra got the jump and the run into turn one. With the curb line re-chalked, white dust filled the air, as drivers kept low to the curb on the slick surface. Matt Brown was the big mover in the early going, working quickly up to third; a good few car lengths behind Charlie Brown, with Sinagra a couple of lengths ahead.
Sinagra stretched out during the early going, but Charlie worked his way back and within 5 laps or so was right on Sinagra’s ginger ale. Sinagra ran the most consistent line the whole race, and whilst the Q1 ran the car a little wider onto the main straight, looking for a run to pass, he just couldn’t get the job done, and had to tuck back in line-astern through the corners.
The leaders got into traffic, and it was clear that no one was going to risk passing on the high-line for fear of washing up. Traffic seamed to open up for Sinagra, and he got through the first cars efficiently, with Charlie not having quite as easy run. Cars started to drop out mid-pack, and whilst the three leading cars didn’t change, Jason Pryde started to get going and was moving forward.
The pace was frantic, and just about half way and a skirmish on-track left several cars stranded and bringing on the yellows for the only stoppage for the race.
Under yellow and the Q1 gave the 28 a little reminder of his proximity during the race with a little rub or two, with Sinagra acknowledging his compatriot and then promptly driving away from Brown at the restart, showing his concentration had not waned with the mid-race interruption.
As close as Charlie got to Sinagra was into one after the re-start, with a good look up the inside. Both cars looked to have tightened up a little under rolling laps, after cooling off the rear rubber, and after the restart the leaders recorded their fastest laps. Sinagra continued to grind out a consistent fast line. Hats off to Charlie, he raced a hard, clean and patient race. The Q1 looked to have slightly better car speed at times; but not once was a kamikaze move tried to get the pass completed and with Sinagra keeping the car on-groove, all Brown could do in a way was ‘enjoy the show’.
On lap 18, and Jason Priolo retired with engine issues after a great run in the top 5, and on the final lap an air-filter fire on the #29 of Thomas Davies, saw him drop back one place and cross the line quite spectacularly in flames, with Andrew Priolo grabbing 4th behind Matt Brown in 3rd.
Nothing could be taken away from Sinagra, it was a masterful and mature display of consistency on a slick-surface; a track that with one mistake would have sent the title east-bound.
The #28 stopped and celebrated with his fiancé Cassandra, father Peter and crewman Benny on the back straight, with the win moving the Sinagra name into the F500’s WA record-books, alongside some of West Australia’s finest.
Final A-Main Results 1 28 David Sinagra 2 Q1 Charlie Brown 3 GLB4 Matt Brown 4 10 Andrew Priolo 5 29 Thomas Davies 6 51 Jason Pryde 7 20 Wayne Dymock 8 15 Craig Bottrell 9 7 Matt Higgs 10 69 Brendan Condren 11 91 Brad Warwick 12 83 Jeremy Saffin 13 22 Aaron Higgins 14 56 Bronwyn Channing 15 97 Debbie Patmore
F500’s WA would like to specially acknowledge Andrew Priolo’s 4th place finish, an outstanding effort for the rookie driver and star of the future. We also would like to acknowledge the drives by Jeremy Saffin, who has only a handful of races in WA, Bronwyn Channing for her first heat win and qualification 7th into the A-Main, and Debbie Patmore for a gritty drive to finish the A-Main 15th starting from 24th.
