On a cool Autumn evening, wait, let’s not bullshit, on a cold Ballarat afternoon/evening a hardy crowd of speedway diehards witnessed some hot speedway action with plenty of thrills and spills and championship deciders.
The unanimous contention from every racer on the night was just how good the track was, a great testament to the efforts of the club despite some less than favourable late mid-week weather.Unfortunately, the evening was cut just a little bit short with the Unlimited sedans still to run their feature after Lachie Chivers needed transport to hospital during the Standard Saloon final.Chivers was fighting for the win with Austin Chivers and Jacob Head when he hit the wall in turn 4.
The impact knocked him unconscious, and his car slowly turned across track and onto the infield as if he was retiring as the race continued. It wasn’t until his car nearly hit Bailey Sinclair who’d retired earlier that we knew things weren’t great.Sinclair was quick to respond and ran alongside the slowly moving car trying to hold Chivers head up while simultaneously trying to stop the car. A couple of others noticed and also sprung to action and were able to eventually stop the car and render immediate assistance to Chivers.Chiver was treated by the Race Day Medical team and was conscious when transported to a pending civil ambulance.
At this point, realising how long this transfer would take and with the cold of the night and only one race of 5 cars to run the decision was made to end the meeting.For Ausitn Chivers it was bitter-sweet getting the win but then solemnly telling those assembled for the presentation that the next stop was going to be the Ballarat hospital to check on Lachie.Redline raceway and the speedway fraternity wish Lachie Chivers a full and speedy recovery.
This event was the culmination of a fast but difficult night for Lachie who’d been into the wall in his first heat, slammed into hard in the next one, but was still quick despite all the hits.Ashley Cormack completed the podium.
The headline event was the final round of the C&H Trucking Pro Sprintcar series where local race Sam Wren faced a come from behind battle to snatch the championship from points leader Dennis Jones.
At the conclusion of two heats Jones had opened the points gap slightly but it still came down to the feature race. Jones qualified about five spots ahead of Wren and wasn’t holding back as he raced hard fighting with Matthew Symons as they both tried to run down race leader and winner Chris Solomon in the Brad Foster owned B&B Retaining Walls #11.
Solomon was gone, out front as Wren then had an issue with airbox jamming the throttle wide open.
He battled on manfully but with only few laps to run he was in danger of being lapped by Jones who took some comfort seeing his nearest rival just ahead and in trouble.Buoyed by this Jones upped the ante instead of easing out of the throttle and passed Symons almost within sight of the chequered flag to grab second and secure his first C&H Trucking Pro Sprintcar Title from Wren and Symons who also finished third in the race.
In the street stock final it came down to Steven Watts and Scot Purdie who’d both had great runs through the heats to share the front row of the feature.
Watts got the jump in the main event and led every lap with Purdie right on his tail for the duration with Morris Ahearn and Peter Kinnear fighting hard in a four-car freight train. Kinnear eventually firmed in third place with Ahearn fourth from Nathan Fawns.
The VSC Unlimited Sedans were the only class not to run their final with Jimmy Harris getting the hardware on points from Ggvin Ough and Steve Hodder.
Action returns to Redline Raceway in two weeks for their season finale