Solomon Storms to Sprintcar Victory at Rolling Thunder

Parwan, Victoria AU | Oct. 29, 2011 - Chris Solomon led the charge of the young brigade as he stormed to his second ever career Sprintcar feature win and first at Rolling Thunder Raceway when he led home Queenslander Shane Heathcote and former Allstars Champion Colin Brooks last Saturday night...

Under dark and threatening skies, Solomon sped to the victory on the back of two very strong heat performances becoming the only driver to lap in the 14 second bracket during the main event. Despite a two wide restart with two laps to go when Kyneton’s Mick Cunningham spun away a great third place, the young Gisborne driver was unfazed and powered on to his second career win.

Brisbanite Heathcote, who’s car is registered in Adelaide and is based in Melbourne, opened his account with a brilliant win in the opening heat and shared the front row of the feature with Solomon but couldn’t quite match the pace of the flying Grizzly Dyno Shocks Eagle.

Adelaide’s Brooks, having his first drive for local car owner Ron Jones in the Mega Auto Parts #97 had a solid first teaming grabbing third following the restart. Prior to that Brooks had been embroiled in a tough battle with Paul Solomon (Securapet #7) and Dennis Jones in the DJE Engineering VSC Sprintcar.

Jones had been a surprise packet in his 337ci carburettored VSC Sprintcar running fast all night and on place for a podium until the final restart when he was jumped by the bigger engined car of Brooks. None the less, while he deserved a podium finish his fourth place result was still fantastic. Paul Solomon completed the top five ahead of rookie Andy Caruana (LA Precast) - who was magnanimously donating a percentage of his tow and prize money to the Breast Cancer Foundation - and Cunningham (PRP Engineering).

Brad Foster, in his #11, rode out a huge wreck when attempting an outside pass on Brooks in turn three in heat two. Foster rode a wheel and speared into the wall before rolling numerous times. Thankfully Brad was able to exit the wreck unassisted.



The Marsh Modifieds contested their premier race, the Steve Curran Memorial, and it was Rob Taylor who took the prestigious event, recording his second straight feature win at Rolling Thunder Raceway. Linda Devlin chased hard for the duration and almost collided with Taylor as they powered through the final turn together but came up just a little bit short of snatching the win. Darryl Howden drove brilliantly from deep in the pack to take the final podium position with Cam Barrie also toiling hard after spinning away a better finish earlier in the race.

In a touching tribute Curran’s old race winning car was driving by his son Peter in a minutes respect before racing commenced and then again later as the pace car for the feature field.
Heats were won by Craig Devlin, Taylor and Nash Harris.



Wingless Sprints had a nice pre-series hit out with David “Hollywood” McKay taking the win after withstanding race long pressure from Chris Halesworth who snatched the lead briefly but was unable to hold on taking a tight second place. Troy Small completed the podium.



Street Stocks weren’t even programmed but when Avalon was cancelled a trio of division rookies headed north to watch the action and ended up in it with a series of sprints and a handicap final which fell to Des Birkin from Jack Bishop and Dave McCumber.