Aussies play at Home

by Patrick Atherton on November 29th, 2011

Week Four of the iRacing V8 Supercar Series by Bigpond Sport moved to the iRacing V8 spiritual home of Phillip Island.

This track always brings out a blockbuster and with the added bonus of pitstops, some guaranteed drama. For the early race at 7.45, Shane Van Gisbergen trounced the field by 17 seconds from Rens Broekman and Richard Hamstead. Hamstead pitted early to attempt an undercut, but when almost everybody pitted on Lap 20, The Giz emerged in the lead and was never headed. Bigpond’s Vern Norrgard had a stellar run, finishing fourth. In the other splits, Clayton Brooks and Andrew Cooper were triumphant.

But the 9.45 race was the Big One, with a field strength of over 4000. Madison Down took pole position for Trans-Tasman Racing, while Tatts.com Racing’s Mitchell McLeod was second on the grid as has been the form guide for most of the year. Van Gisbergen was back, with a good strategy under his belt, in third. Simon Madden, with new Direct Clutch Services livery had “a rocket” to qualify fourth. Next were Rens Broekman, TTR’s Josh Muggleton, Troy Cox, Tatts.com’s Scott U’Ren, Richard Hamstead and Michael McCabe.

Down heads for Bass Straight

Down got the lead from McLeod, Van Gisbergen and Muggleton who had jumped Broekman and Madden at the start.

Disaster struck for McLeod when on lap four, his engine went bang on a downshift. “I didn’t feel like I did anything differently to any other lap…” lamented McLeod, whose slender series lead went up in virtual grey smoke. After a blue riband performance at The Glen, it was a bittersweet taste of virtual racing’s highs and lows.

Things went downhill for McLeod in so many ways...

The pitstop window began early with Van Gisbergen trying something cunning, pitting on lap 15.  Muggleton was now elevated to second. He stopped two laps later, but an overshot pit bay cost him dearly, putting him behind Broekman, Hamstead and U’Ren after their respective stops.

Leader Down pitted on Lap 19, which gave Shaun Kelly and Stuart Wood a brief taste at the front. After their stops, Down was back where he seems to belong.

Action further back as Cox, Dodimead, Slade, Leach, Black and Fullerton have at it

Muggleton, meanwhile, had quickly dispensed with U’Ren at the plunge into MG Corner to climb back up to fourth. Two laps later he wrestled third from Hamstead with a move which took both the Honda Hairpin and Siberia to complete. He then had to withstand a charging Van Gisbergen, recovering from an earlier penalty, but “when his tyres fell off a cliff, all I had to do was stay on track to claim a podium..”. U’Ren eventually claimed Van Gisbergen as well.

So it was a TTR 1-3, Down victorious from Broekman and Muggleton. Next was U’ren, Van Gisbergen, Cox, Cal Whatmore, Beau Cubis, Hamstead and Simon Black rounding out the ten.

With a whopping four splits the other winners for the night were Richard Lock, Rodney Dangri and David Turnbull.

OVERALL DIVISION STANDINGS