Jarrod Hughes clean sweeps Saturday at Winton Raceway

IES Motorsport’s Jarrod Hughes has clean swept Saturday taking home pole position and two race victories at Winton Motor Raceway for Round 1 of the TFH Hire TA2 Muscle Car Series - Presented by Maritimo. 

The fight to Hughes was taken up by fellow Super2 steerer Ben Gomersall (#35 UNIT Racing/TFH) and Josh Webster (#200 Autofix) who finished second and third respectively in both races of the day’s 20-minute races.

Race 1’s start saw the field of 20 TA2s charge to the Turn 1 sweeper with rookie Diesel Thomas (#18 TFH Racing) flying to the infield, sustaining damage and failing to finish. Tom Davies (#42 Exchange Hotel Kilcoy) also scored a DNF due to a fire in the engine bay, causing the Queenslander to not be on the grid for Race 2.

The afternoon’s second race saw the same top-3 finishers in Hughes, Gomersall and Webster, with Cameron Laws (#29 Racing Academy) recovering from a race-one disqualification to finish 11th and leading rookie.

Leading Circo Masters driver Graham Cheney finished eighth outright in both races and the series’ only female driver Kiara Zabetakis - who qualified an impressive 14th place on debut - finished 14th and 17th in each race.

Sunday March 2 will see morning qualifying session at 10.25am AEDT followed by Race 1 and 2 which will be broadcast live on SBS free-to-air, FoxSports and Kayo Sports from 1pm AEDT. 

QUOTES

Jarrod Hughes, #118 Road Active Suspension Chevrolet Camaro 

“It was an awesome race. I was happy to convert pole position into a race win. There is lots of learning still to do with the new tyres were just trying to go through the data and videos as much as we can and try to learn as much as we can going into tomorrow.”

Ben Gomersall, # Unit Racing/TFH Ford Mustang 

“Overall a pretty good day for myself. Just missed out on pole position. We found some speed over night but there’s still a bit more to find. We brought it home in the final race today in p2. We’re slowly chipping away and l am looking forward to tomorrow."

Graham Cheney, #51 IES Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro 

“It wasn’t too bad, didn’t quite get the lap i wanted. I was actually on a pretty good lap and ran a little bit wide out of turn 11 which really cost me.”

“I had a reasonable start in race 1 and was holding position. I got tipped out in turn 11 but recovered. The other two masters ran off at turn 1 on the last lap so i came away with the win in masters class.”

“I really struggled with turning the car in race 2. I did really well in the first sector, but coming into the sweeper I struggled a little bit. Had a good race with Des Collier and struggled to get past him which put a smile on his face.”

“Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day considering most drivers in the field don’t have green tyres so they’re going to be on old tyres. The temperature will be down a bit but it should be good.”