Racing at Nyora Raceway on Saturday night (March 16th) gave motorsport fans some fast and furious competition to enjoy with Pakenham man Damien Miller winning the Robert ‘Woggy’ Bickham Memorial for Sports Sedans, Nick Parker winning the Compact Speedcar aggregate event, Shannon Meakins winning the Hot Rods aggregate event and Caroline Allen from Warragul winning the Ladies Standard Saloon ‘Pink Night’ feature.
Sports Sedan racers in South Gippsland and Melbourne’s Southeast and Eastern Suburbs look forward to the memorial race at Nyora for ‘Woggy’ each season and in the five seasons it’s been scheduled, wins go by the way of Brendan Miller and then Damien Miller twice, and now make that three times with Covid and rain outs in-between.
Across six qualifying heats on race night this year Damien Miller won heat one, with Simon Bent winning the next, Warragul based racer Ray Gould won heat three only just defeating Shona Bent, Miller again won in the fourth with Simon Bent right on his tail, before Miller clean swept all his heat races winning heat number five in a close one with Jayde Aarts and Simon Bent taking the win in the closing qualifying soon after.
Twenty-four laps in correlation with Bickham’s own race car number awaited the drivers for the feature event. Fifteen cars lined up to compete with eleven of those fifteen not seeing the distance due to mechanical issues, tyre flats or other concerns, including Simon Bent the second top qualifier. Miller claimed a third victory in the race with Braiden Webster from Inverloch second, Troy Desmond-Veal third and Gavan Dorain the only other finisher in fourth.
Compact Speedcars brought their fast and furious little rockets to Nyora for one of their Victorian Compact Speedcar Clubs points events. Across four heat races Nick Parker who doubles as a Speedcar racer in the big brother class to the Compacts claimed a win in heat one driver for the Trevor Perry Chassis team with the boss Trevor Perry himself in second place ahead of Justin Paull. Parker scorched around Nyora setting a new one lap record of 14.883 over .200 of a second faster than the previous record. The ten-lap race time was also a new record at the track now standing at 2:35.755.
Paull from Montrose, the current New South Wales champion defeated his sister Tania Hallett in heat two with Terry Brown coming through for third. Parker again defeated his car owner Perry in heat three with Paull again third in that race. For the third time in the night and clean sweeping all his qualifying races Parker defeated Perry and Dale Hallett in the final qualifying race.
In a twenty-lap feature event Parker secured a perfect night for him and his car owner as he held the lead through to the end. Whilst Perry was a non-finisher, Parker went on to defeat Paull, Dale Hallett, Glen Wiles and Matt Papa in the feature event for Compact Speedcars. A twenty-lap record was also slotted into the record books for Parker with a race time of 5:18.442
Ladies Standard Saloon drivers competed in the ‘Pink Night’ feature event raising awareness and support towards breast cancer. One of the hottest competitors of the season thus far has been Bree Walker from the Latrobe Valley and she started well in heat one of the night claiming a win in front of Caroline Allen and Elise Halliday. Allen claimed victory in the second race with Katie Meyer second Halliday also from Latrobe Valley in third. Meyer claimed the win in heat three with Walker and Allen finishing behind the visiting driver from Victoria’s Northeast to round out the three qualifying races.
In a big redemption victory for herself and her supporters, Allen then went on to claim victory in a hotly contested feature race with Walker second, Meyer third, Halliday in fourth and Shana Hilsdon crossing the line in fifth.
With a looming Victorian state title in the next two weeks, entries in the Standard Saloon Open class were low with just a handful of starters. Aaron Cormack and Kacey Ingram from Warragul twice shared the three heat victories between them. Claiming victory in a short sprint for the final was Poowong’s Owen Cecil with a margin of less than half a car between he and Ingram in second, with Bree Walker third and head of Luke King and Matthew Bronson rounding out the finishers.
Modified Sedan competitors, particularly those aligned with Nyora as a club, were given an opportunity to squirt some dirt and a handful of drivers took that with Mitch Smith winning heat race number one. Andrew Dike then claimed wins in heat two and three before Dike went on in an eight-lap final to secure the night’s Modified Sedan first place spot ahead of Smith and Jarred Hooper.
Rounding out all our racing for Saturday night was the visiting Speedway Drivers Association of Victoria Hot Rods. From Melbourne’s eastern suburbs Brendan Roberts was a winner in heat one from Mornington Peninsula based racer Neil Sixtus and Tony Green. Victorian champion Shannon Meakins then won the second heat race of the day with a win in front of Tony Greena and Andrew Kemp. Meakins won again in heat three in front of Roberts and Green. Closing out the evening and taking another feature race victory was Meakins. He defeated Roberts Sixtus, Kemp, and Kali Hovey.
The next race meeting is April the 6th, keep an eye out via Nyora Raceway’s Facebook page for details about the event as Marcus puts them together.
Nyora would like to thank their supporters all very much.
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Written by
Dean Thompson
DMT Speedway Media
For Nyora Raceway Inc