Haynes regains championship lead with back-to-back wins in Ipswich

Josh Haynes has taken back the lead of the 2024 TFH Hire TA2 Muscle Car Series framed by Hytek Steel Framing after taking out the first two race wins at Round 3 at Queensland Raceway.

After a spin at Turn 1 during Qualifying on his second flyer, Haynes returned to the track and bested Tom Hayman on his final lap to take his second Kubota Pole Award of the year with a blistering 1:11.9520, with Hayman joining the front row from Gartner and Hughes.

Drama struck on Lap 1 when Mark Bailey’s JAX Tyres and Auto Camaro turned Mark Crutcher around at Turn 4, with Hayden Jackson also collected on his way through.

Russell Wright was on a charge early, moving passed the TFH Hire pair of Josh Thomas and Des Collier into the top ten.

Tom Hayman was keeping Haynes honest until the final lap, stopping on the main straight with a driveline issue. Hayman missed Race 2 but will be back in action on Sunday with a gearbox leant by the Jackson team.

Domain Ramsay was having a good race in sixth before he became stuck in gear and dropped back to 12th.

Brad Gartner was promoted to second in Race 1 from Super2 driver Jarrod Hughes.

Haynes lead the field away for Race 2, as PHD Motorsport’s Graham Cheney jumped Hughes for third around the outside of Turn 1.

Mark Crutcher made a demon start from the rear of grid to be in eighth by the end of Lap 1.

Mark Bailey recovered from his spin in Race 1 to move back up to eighth.

Wright moved into the top five, and hurting along Hughes but settled into fifth.

TFH Hire’s Josh Thomas parked the TFH Hire Mustang on Lap 8 with a driveline issue.

Danny Reidy spun the Desert Palms Alice Springs Camaro at Turn 1 with two laps to go.

The race was called one lap early, as Haynes tool the win from Gartner and Cheney.

The TFH Hire TA2 Muscle Car Series Framed by Hytek Steel Framing returns for Races 3 and 4 tomorrow at Queensland Raceway. All the action is live on SBS On Demand, Fox and Kayo. 

QUOTES

Josh Haynes, #37 Herzog Steel Ford Mustang

“We’ve had a really good day. I lost a bit of confidence in qualifying after putting it in the sand trap at Turn 1, so the focus was just to get out there, get a clean start in both races, get through Turn 1 and keep my head down.

“It’s still very early days. We've still got two long races tomorrow, so it's all a tyre game at the moment. It was good to look after our tyres because we've got two long races tomorrow. The car feels good, the team’s done an awesome job and this Herzog Steel Mustang is a weapon.

“We've had a good start to the weekend, so hopefully we can keep that going.”

Best of luck. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone at home. 

Brad Gartner, #22 Hi-Tec Oils Chevrolet Camaro

“Good old saying, ‘second sucks’, so we've got work to do. I think later on in the race, we've got five laps of the race and then a couple of purple sectors there at the end. So, I don't know if it's me at the start, ust probably taking too long to get a full confidence. It's a hard thing to just go out there and break at the 150 mark straight away, so we need to build that because other than that, we were the fastest car on track after lap four, so we just need to do something about that and tune it up for tomorrow.

“There was a bit of cloud cover, the track was fast, so we didn't have to rag it to get that number. It was just cool to run behind Josh but he's fast and we’ve got a good team, so we'll get the Hi-Tec Oils Chevy fast for tomorrow and go again.

Graham Cheney, #51 PHD Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro

“I definitely have a bit of work tomorrow if these races play out like they did today. Jared [Hughes] definitely made me work for that one. He was filling up all the mirrors and I knew I had to get in front of him at the start because I know he's got the pace and just had to keep him there. 

“We've got definitely good pace around the outside of turn one and two and that's where I drove around the outside of Jarrod.”