Round 1 of the 2012 Jettco Triple Crown Formula 500 Series is set to invade Laang Speedway this Saturday Night, February 11th. 27 drivers have signalled their intentions for the opening round with $1000 going to the winner.

Heading the nominations is current Australian Champion Liam Williams. Williams is coming off a great Oval Express Super Series where he picked up 2 feature wins on his way to finishing 3rd overall. Williams also picked up a win at Laang and will go in as 1 of the favourites.

2 drivers certainly in a rich vein of form at the moment are the Sinclair Brothers Dale and Ash. Both drivers had stand out Oval Express Series campaigns with Ash picking up 2 podium results while Dale picked up the win in a recent round of the Stampede Series at Hamilton. Both will be looking to continue their good form.

James Aranyosi and Jye O’Keeffe have been perennial front runners in Victoria in recent memory and have had good results at Laang in the past. Both drivers finished with a podium finish in the recent round of the Stampede Series at Hamilton and will be hard to beat come heat 1.

Experienced drivers looking to take the cash include Tim Hicks, Leigh Van Ginneken driving the Clavell Family owned SA9, Brett Willsher having his first run for the year, Simon Craven, Mat Turner, Jess Moulden, AJ Blackstock and Steven Horton.

Will Carroll, Mitch Whiting and Dylan Willsher have been showing plenty of good car speed as of late. Carroll and Whiting both picked up podium finishes in the Oval Express series while Willsher will be looking for a great result at his home track.

A smorgasbord of rookies including former Super Rod racer Rod Barker, Tyler Carter, Adrian Christian, Josh Fort, Ryan O’Keefe, Matthew Symons, current Super Rod driver Jason Kavanagh, Adam Turner, Robert Trewartha and Jarryd Irving will tackle it with the best.

Over the past few seasons the Jettco Triple Crown Series has seen a different format with this Saturday nights format no different. Each car will participate in hot laps. The hot laps session will also double as Time Trials with the times used to seed the cars in the heat races.

With the time trials and hot laps completed each car will race in 2 12 Lap heat races. The first round of heats will see the fastest cars come from the front. The 2nd round of heats see the rows crossed over and inverted meaning the faster cars will come from the back.

At the conclusion of the heats the top 12 drivers will be locked away into the 20 lap A-Main with highest points sitting on pole. The remaining cars will race off in a last chance 15 lap B-Main with the top 10 transferring through to the back of the A-Main.
Hot laps will start at 6pm with heats starting shortly after that. With the track set to host the 2012 Australian Title over Easter, this will give drivers the chance to get some much needed practise.

The Victorian Formula 500 Association would like to thank Stephen Bell from Jettco Developments for his valued support of the series. We also have a Facebook page. Search for Australian Formula 500 Facebook Page and ask to join.

Jettco Triple Crown Round 1 Nominations

A1 Liam Williams
V6 Will Carroll
V9 Tim Hicks
SA9 Leigh Van Ginneken
V14 Brett Willsher
V15 Rod Barker
V20 Simon Craven
V24 Tyler Carter
V26 Mitch Whiting
V27 Dylan Willsher
SA29 Grant Stansfield
V32 Mat Turner
V34 Adrian Christian
V40 Josh Fort
V48 Ryan O’Keefe
V50 James Aranyosi
V51 Ash Sinclair
V53 Jess Moulden
V55 Jye O’Keeffe
V70 Matthew Symons
V75 AJ Blackstock
V77 Mathew Kavanagh
V83 Adam Turner
V91 Steven Horton
V92 Robert Trewartha
V95 Dale Sinclair
V97 Jarryd Irving