Dave "Sideways" Sieders has taken his first round win at Hidden Valley Raceway for round three of the Australian V8 Ute Racing Series - fuelled by Hog's Breath Cafe this weekend, 20-22 June 2014.
The 29 year old, from Londonderry in Sydney's West, added to his perfect results yesterday with a Top 10 in the reverse grid this morning before his 20th Series race win this afternoon clinched the round win.
"I'm just so happy to finally tick off the round win here in Darwin," said Sieders, "it's probably been one of our most frustrating results, because we've been so fast here, and been on the podium three other times, so it's great to finally take this round win."
"There was a really strong battle with Ryan [Hansford] and Kris [Walton] all weekend, and the points going into the last race meant that one spot was going to win or lose you those outright honours."
Winning race one yesterday gave Sieders the task of drawing the reverse grid lotto, which had him starting from 14th in today's morning race, and a hard fought push into tenth place for the finish.
"At least I managed to pull the lowest possible number for once," said Sieders, "we found ourselves on the back of a pretty fast train of cars, and I ended up rolling off it a bit down the straight as there was no point chewing up tyres".
Combined racing points again had Sieders starting on the front row for the final race of the weekend, alongside his closest rival for the round win in Ryan Hansford. Separated by a single point, it effectively meant that the winner of this mini battle would go home with the round honours.
From lights out, Hansford and Sieders took the battle away from the field, putting almost a two-second gap on the field by the second lap, with Sieders applying pressure, a mistake by Hasnford on lap seven allowed Sieders to take the lead before being pushed to the checkered flag by Kris Walton.
"A great way to finish the weekend," said Sieders, "the battle for first place was hard and fast, and it was only when Ryan missed a gear that I was able to get through...At the end of thee race I was sliding under brakes at turns four and eight, which put Walton right on my rear, but not enough to take it from me".
The round win has put Sieders only two points out of the Series lead as the Championship heads to Townsville for round four of the season in two weeks time, 4-6th July 2014.
"Townsville is one of those tracks where we've had some solid starts, but been caught up throughout the weekend and never had a really strong finish, so it's another one we really want to attack hard like we've done here this weekend."
