Former multi time Victorian Street Stock Champion Justin Sadler this season took the fresh challenge and stepped into open wheel ‘Formula 500’ racing with some pleasing results as they learn the car set up and the way to drive the pocket rocket’s compared with throwing a Sedan around the race tracks that they had been used to for a number of years.

Justin shared a comment. “Our first challenge this year was to take on the complete ‘Oval Express’ super series ran over the new year period with 8 nights of racing out of ten nights with teams from all over Australia and a couple of Americans to compete against. After dropping a round at Hamilton due to snapping a brake line in the opening heat we managed to finish twenty seventh in points out of 43 teams.”

If Sadler had of been able to run the Hamilton round and finished the B Main as a minimum he may have been able to finish as high as twentieth in the points score such was the closeness of the competition so overall not a bad result in the first year competing in the series for Justin.

With the ‘Oval Express’ series done Sadler concentrated on the Victorian Stampede Series which was 7 race meetings over a complete season mostly in the western districts of country Victoria. In this series Sadler finished fifth place in points with again around 43 racers that competed in this series.

Sadler was delighted with the results in the ‘Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International’ Stampede series. “We were stoked as to where we finished in the points in the State series with such tough competition on a regular basis in Victoria.

This season has been all new to everybody in our team and we learnt every night and every night we came home strongly. Sadler finished behind Will Carroll, James Aronyosi, Ash Sinclair & Mat Turner all seasoned campaigners in the 500’s.

Sadler’s best result was the series round at Redline Raceway in Ballarat where he had much success as a Street Stock racer and finished sixth in the feature as he also did at Mid Western Speedway Darlington.

Of course Sadler doesn’t do this all Formula 500 racing alone and had some words for his supporters.” I couldn’t have done it without the support of my crew and family and my major sponsor Morris Finance Ltd. As a result of their support I was able to stock up on spares that we needed to do so much racing.

I also am so grateful for Chris and Nadine Edwards from Chris Edwards Custom Race Cars who have learnt along this journey with us. Essendon Ford, Geelong Car Carriers & Gaugeworks who are also very supportive of this opportunity.”

The crew that help out Sadler include Fiona Harrison, Josh Sadler, Steph Clarson, Mick Parry & Glyn Sadler he had this say. “To all these guys’ thanks for giving up your weekends to help out and have fun with me.

Next season we plan to run the ‘Oval Express’ & Stampede Series again and some interstate travel as our major supporter is a national business and getting into South Australia, Canberra, New South Wales and Queensland possibly Tasmania depending on the budget we are afforded when we speak to our supporters at the end of this season.”

In full Justin Sadler Motorsports thanks:
Morris Finance Ltd
Essendon Ford
Chris Edwards Custom Race Cars
Geelong Car Carriers
Gaugeworks

Written by Dean Thompson
DMT Media for Justin Sadler Motorsports

Justin Sadler in the Morris Finance # 41 (C) Corey Gibson Photography