Holden Scorches to Hidden Valley Victory

Holden driver Grant Johnson turned up the blowtorch on his Ford rivals to win Round 4 of the Yokohama V8 Ute Series at Darwin's Hidden Valley over the weekend.

Johnson bounced back from a last round shocker to move back into 3rd in the championship, behind the Ford duo of Marcus Zukanovic and Jack Elsegood.

"I knew if I could get the Grove Fruit Juice Ute off the line first, then we had the pace to go on with the job." Johnson said. "The Ute was flawless and the heat didn't seem to affect the Holden as much as the Ford. I had my first Ute race at Darwin last year so to come back with 2 race wins, a round win and the new lap record is pretty special."

Zukanovic extended his championship lead to 25 points, while reigning Champ Damien Ice White felt the heat of a steward's decision to award a drive through penalty for passing Holden's Kim Jane under yellow flags.

Jane's Melbourne Cheapest Cars Commodore won the reverse grid race in a storming drive from pole in one of the best races seen this season. Under constant pressure from James Brock, White, Elsegood and Kerry Wade, Jane lost the lead briefly to Brock, but the Power Loan Commodore driver hit oil dropped by Charlie Kovacs engine failure and handed the lead back to the former Nascar champ.

A mid race grass fire started by Queensland's Ryal Harris saw a safety car period while marshalls extinguished the fire, however at the restart Jane used all his Nascar experience to read the start beautifully, and go onto win by 1/10th of a second from Damien White.

The race three grid saw Johnson and Zukanovic on the front row, however the Perth driver was never headed during the 15 lap final, finishing 6 seconds ahead of Zukanovic and the OBH entry of Kerry Wade. Jane's 4th spot was enough to keep him on the podium for 3rd overall on the day.                                                                                                 

The Darwin heat claimed the engine of Brock's Commodore mid race, dropping the Melbourne engineering ace down in the series point score.

Matt Kingsley score the PGF V8 Superclub Drive of the Day, picking up 11 places in race one, while Andrew Flynn 's Four Seasons Condoms Commodore won the Sonax Car Care Best presented award.

Race Two Results

1          Kim Jane                    Holden SS Commodore

2          Damien White           Ford BF Falcon XR8

3          Jack Elsegood          Ford BF Falcon XR8

4          James Brock             Holden SS Commodore

5          Kerry Wade               Ford BF Falcon XR8

6          Marcus Zukanovic     Ford BF Falcon XR8