Kris “Killa” Walton and David Sieders aren’t willing to give-up the Series title just yet after topping the time-sheets today, (Friday, 6th December), in the combined practice sessions at the final Round of the 2013 Auto One V8 Ute Racing Series – protected by ARMOR ALL at the Sydney NRMA Motoring and Services 500.
The Rentco Ford driver, currently in equal 5th (101pts off the leader), set the fastest time 1:45.7096, pipping Sieders (running 4th) by .2297 seconds.
“We’re just going to try and do our best if we can and get a round win that would be great. We’ve only had one win this year and we had it taken off us (exclusion from Race 3 at Bathurst for an ineligible upper inner control arm bracket),” said Walton.
Sieders has had one of the fastest cars all year, with 3 pole awards under his belt, although it hasn’t always worked out in his favour.
“It’s only practice, I’ve been fast in practice before and you go into qualifying and your nowhere, it’s a long weekend. We rolled out the door fast, so hopefully we can keep that going into qualifying and the race. The ute is a brand new shell, following the Gold Coast hit, so it was a fantastic effort by the team to get it built and on the pace in such a short time,” said Sieders.
Walton’s teammate Ryan Hansford bought his HT Racing Ford home third fastest (the third Ford over the line). Kim Jane also in for the championship title was fifth ahead of Andrew Fisher, who had a run-in with the wall at Fuso Corner (Turn 8).
Currently running second in the Series, Rhys McNally had issues with his car during the first session but recovered to be 6th fastest in the session two.
Series front-runner, Ryal Harris, had some issues running off the track at turn 1, he was running 13th fastest at the time but managed to come home in 7th, ahead of Thirsty Camel’s Craig Dontas in 8th, Ben Dunn in 9th and V8 Ute Rookie Elliot Barbour rounded out the top ten.
Jack Le Brocq did well to be 11th fastest in his first V8 Ute outing this year and Nathan Pretty, currently in third, struggled for pace today to be only 12th fastest in the combined practice sessions.
The drivers will hit the track for a busy day of racing tomorrow (Saturday, 7th December) starting with Qualifying at 9:40am, Race 1 at 1:30pm, which will be televised in a delayed telecast through Seven at 3:20pm. The Utes will then hit the track for a reversed grid race 2 at 3:35pm before the Series decider on Sunday, 8th December with Race 3 at 10:50am.
