THE INTENSITY CONTINUES IN MEGUIAR’S APC RACE THREE AT THE BEND

01 Jun THE INTENSITY CONTINUES IN MEGUIAR’S APC RACE THREE AT THE BEND

It was another close battle for race three of what is the second round of the 2024 Meguiar’s Australian Production Cars season at The Bend Motorsport Park this afternoon.

Kicking off at 4.35pm, the field once again raced into the dark on the Western Circuit, delivering plenty of entertainment along the way.

Grant Sherrin started the race from pole position thanks to his race two victory in the X class #27 Sherrin Rentals BMW M4, lining up alongside Chris Lillis (A2 #64 Cachet Homes HSV Camaro SS) and ahead of race one winner Cameron Crick (X #118 DA Campbell Transport BMW M2) and Chris Sutton (B1 #321 321 Motorsport Mitsubishi Evo X).

Crick snatched the lead from Sherrin off the start, while Mark Caine (X #21 Secure Wealth Advisors BMW M4) also had a strong start, moving from sixth to fourth, jumping Justin Anthony (A1 #71 Buccini Transport BMW M140i) and Sutton in the process, with Sutton going on to pass Anthony for P5 in the coming laps.

Crick and Sherrin were bumper to bumper across the opening stanza and continued to do battle until the CPS window opened, with the top four (Crick, Sherrin, Caine, Lillis) all stopping together at the first opportunity, with Hodges jumping in to take over from Caine at this time.

Rejoining the field, Sherrin clearly had the advantage in the pit stops with another lighting fast stop by the Sherrin Racing team, rejoining P3 ahead of Lillis in P4 while Crick rejoined in P5 and Hodges in P8.

From here it looked like Sherrin had the opportunity to possibly take another race win, sitting ahead – albeit with a narrow margin – of Crick, however it wasn’t to be, with the #27 being forced to the pits at the 32 minute mark to serve a pit lane penalty due to Sherrin leaving the pit box in the CPS with a socket stuck on a wheel nut. He rejoined P4, from where he was able to pass Anthony to reclaim an outright podium position.

Crick was unchallenged from this point, running away with the win in the later stages to cross the line 36 seconds over A2 winner and 2^nd outright Lillis, while Sherrin came home third outright and second in X class.

Hodges meanwhile brought home 4^th outright and 3^rd in class x, crossing the line ahead of A1 winner and fifth outright, Sutton, and A1 runner-up, Anthony – who was another who made a second trip to the pits in the second half of the race when he had a tyre let go in the late stages.

The B1 winning #999 of Karlie Buccini and Courtney Prince came home 7^th outright ahead of the #15 VSP BMW 1M of Zaki Wazir and Tom Shaw, which was third for class A1, while Brent Peters brought home the B2 win from 9^th outright, in the #32 Luxe Performance Holden Commodore SSV.

Allan Jarvis was the winner for class C in the #70 TOA57D Motorsport VW Polo, although he did cross the line 11.9 laps down on the field after having spent 15 minutes in the pits due to a fuel miscalculation – rejoining for the final two laps to take the flag. While the timing screen mistakenly declared him a DNF initially, this was rectified post-race.

We will be back on-track tomorrow morning for one last dance this weekend – see you on-track at 8.55am for our fourth and final hour-long race.

For information about Meguiar’s Australian Production Cars, please contact admin@ausprodcars.com.au or visit www.ausprodcars.com.au