The classic Australian motorsport battle of Ford vs Holden is alive and well in the Saloon Cars series which has associations in Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and of course Western Australia dominated the WA Sporting Car Club’s June race meet at Wanneroo Raceway on the 13th June.
Qualifying in the top spot for the Saloon Cars WA PRO category was Brock Boley who beat out reigning champion Grant Johnson by 0.0638 seconds, Behind them 3rd to 9th was covered by just 1 second with Robert Marcon in 3rd, Mason Harvey in 4th, Rick Gill in 5th, Matt Martin 6th, Chase Hoy 7th and Michael Bond and Greg Dyson finishing out that short spread.
In the PRO AM series, Michael Koberstein took out pole position with Brock Ralph 0.0815 seconds behind. Michael Holdcroft took out third.
In the first race despite some close racing at parts, Boley managed to finish almost 3 seconds ahead of Johnson and 4 seconds ahead of Marcon, but behind the spread out 1st – 3rd place getters, Mason Harvey, Chase Hoy and Matt Martin were putting on a superb show of why Saloon Car racing fields such big grids with places swapping all through the race, late braking and bumper to bumper through the corners style racing. Hoy was running in 4th heading into the final corner but some superb driving by Harvey saw him get the outside overtake done and finish ahead of Hoy.
Back in the PRO AM category Brock Ralph finish .28 seconds ahead of pole sitter Michael Koberstein with the rest of the field spread out fairly evenly all the way back.
Despite our best predictions of a wet race, ok we were clutching at straws on that one, the weather turned it on with sunshine covering the 2.411km Wanneroo Raceway clearly a nod to the racing the Saloons were putting on.
Race 2 finished with Johnson closing the gap by 1 second to finish behind Boley who told us during the lunch break that he was feeling relaxed and comfortable in the car and the car was just performing. Meanwhile Johnson was found in his pits adjusting tire pressures to find some extra time. Robert Marcon finished in 3rd position but behind him a battle between Matt Martin and Chase Hoy went down to the wire with Hoy finishing in 4th.
In the PRO-AM series, 1st to 4th was covered by 0.7 seconds with Brock Ralph, Michael Holdcroft, Justin Chaffey and Michael Koberstein on each others bumpers from start to finish in the race with Ralph eventually coming out on top. Chaffey and Koberstein posted some fast lap times with Chaffey taking out fastest lap of the race, however it wasn’t enough to get them past the other two.
The final race of the day was reduced to a 4 lap sprint mini-nightmasters after a car in a previous category decided that keeping the oil in its engine was not on the agenda for the day.
This format semeed to suit Johnson a lot better as he finally got ahead of Brock Boley but only by 0.19 seconds in the four lap sprint. Behind them again the racing was right with Robert Marcon finishing 0.3 seconds behind the lead two and then Chase Hoy and Mason Harvey having another down to the final corner race with Harvey again with an outside pass to get ahead of Chase Hoy and finish in 4th.
The PRO-AM category didn’t want to be upstaged and again put on close racing with the final spread of the top 4 just 1 second.
Round win went to Brock Boley on 70 points, Grant Johnson on 65 finished 2nd and Robert Marcon came in 3rd on 54. Worthy of note is that Mason Harvey and Chase Hoy ended up on 49 points a piece to finish equal 4th in the round.
In the PRO AM series Ralph picked up a clean sweep of 75 points, Koberstein finished on 57, Holdcroft 56 and Chaffey on 52.
Check out this highlights video from Round 4!
