2013 Keilor Cup Rd3 – Report
The 3rd round of the popular Victorian Drivers Series was held at the Keilor Club in Melbourne on the 11th August. The Keilor track crew worked hard to get the track ready after a week of heavy rain and come race day, the track was perfect with a groove forming. Over 150 entries were received for this 1 day event making for a long day with full fields in all classes. The modified fields in particular were stacked with 30 entries in both 2WD and 4WD open. With no less than six previous national champions in the field, just making an A-main was going to be tough. JConcepts were well represented headed by Factory driver Ray Munday (JC/AE/Novak/Reedy), Glen Bonetti (JC/AE) Ash Peeler (JC/Kyosho), Glen Bonetti (JC/AE), Leigh Cheeseman (JC/Schumacher), John Watkins (JC/Xray) and Scott Giles (JC/Schumacher) ready to take it to the rest of the field. This included multi-time national champ Matt Griffin (Yokomo), Ben Sterling (Kyosho), touring car ace Ryan Maker (Kyosho), Welsh star Jody Denner (Yokomo), Mark ‘Paris’ Rodgers (AE), Tasmanian Sam Wells and Scott ‘The Hot One’ Rawlings (Yokomo).
The 2WD Open class saw a clean sweep for Ray Munday on his home track. Fastest in all three qualifiers and winner of A1 and A2, he was never headed all day. Young gun Glen Bonetti won A3 to wrap up second place with Ash Peeler finishing third.
4WD Open proved to be the closest racing of the day with Ray Munday and long time rival Matt Griffin battling for the lead. Ray took out Q1, and Matt Q2 setting up a Q3 showdown. A small bobble 2 laps from home cost Ray as Matt took Q3 by 0.5s to TQ. In all three finals Matt and Ray pulled away from the field but were never more than one second apart. Matt held his nerve and his line to take two finals, with Ray coming home second by the narrowest of margins. Ryan Maker showed he is no slouch in off-road with a fine third place. JConcepts featured heavily in the final with Glen Bonetti, Leigh Cheeseman and John Watkins all battling for the podium.
Andrew Selvaggi was the man of the day in Truck, putting aside a Q1 DNF to TQ then win A1 and A2 in convincing fashion with his Reedy powered T4.2. Scott Giles then took out A3.
Ashley Peeler won the SCT national title this year and showed everyone why with a strong win in the 2WD SCT class. He won Q1 and Q2 to TQ, then A1 and A3 to seal the win. He was pushed hard by local Kyle Sanders (Losi), with his hard work paying off with results. He won A2 to take second overall.
In the 2WD 21.5 class for up and coming drivers, Ant Salvatore continued his domination of the class with Brodie Jaensch taking out top junior. In 4WD SCT, Scott Rawlings took the winning honours with his SC104x4.
Source: JConcepts [jconcepts.net]
