The battle between Neil McFadyen and Jason Bargwanna to be crowned the first ever MINI CHALLENGE round winner intensified today at Eastern Creek International Raceway, with qualifying and the first of three races. Both were decided in the favour of McFadyen.
QUALIFYING
The 20 minute qualifying session was a see-saw affair between Scope Signs and Graphics pilot, McFadyen and DecoRug Motorsport’s Paul Stokell.
Stokell was the early pace-setter, before McFadyen, who patiently sat in pitlane for the first part of the session waiting for his competition to sweep the track clean, joined the fray and immediately set about setting the quickest time. Stokell took provisional pole back, before McFadyen blasted to his quickest time of 1:44.6655.
Stokell was bumped back to third when Jason Bargwanna set the second quickest time in the MINI CHALLENGE UBER-STAR CAR.
Nathan Geier continued to impress, qualifying fourth in front of the second DecoRug mobile of Grant Denyer, whilst Paul Fiore in the Brisbane MINI Garage entry improved markedly from yesterday, finishing the session in sixth placing.
RACE ONE
The first race anywhere in the world for the R56 model MINI John Cooper Works CHALLENGE racecar got off to a frantic start with Bargwanna, McFadyen, Stokell, Denyer and Geier all swapping positions on the opening few turns.
The lead was decided in favour of McFadyen at turn nine on the opening lap, when he took the Scope Signs and Graphics MINI underneath Bargwanna to take the lead in a brilliant passing manoeuvre that left little margin for error.
From there, it became a terse encounter between the two, swapping fastest laps for the entire duration. Ultimately though, McFadyen was able to assert his authority and take the first race victory in the world for the MINI John Cooper Works CHALLENGE racecar. The margin of victory was 1.5 seconds.
Despite finishing second, Bargwanna came away with the fastest lap of the race.
Behind the front two, it was on for young and old. Whilst Stokell was ensconced in a comfortable third placing, Denyer and Geier were nose to tail for practically the entire distance, the former taking the fourth placing.
By virtue of his sixth placed finish, Paul Fiore has earned himself a pole position berth in tomorrow’s reverse grid second race.
The eyes of the crowd were focused on a battle a bit further back however, with Iain Sherrin, Todd Fiore, Gary Young, Chris Oxley, Ricky Occhipinti, Michael Stillwell and Dave Turner swapping positions from corner to corner for the entire 10 lap distance.
Seventh placing went to Oxley in the end, with Todd Fiore, Young, Occhipinti, Sherrin, Turner and Stillwell following through.
Rounding out the field were Callum Ballinger – who only had the call-up to drive on Wednesday when original driver, Kevin Miller was held up in Brisbane, Tim Poulton – who’s hoping for more from some overnight changes and Darren Berry.
Both McFadyen and Bargwanna are relishing the thought of two races tomorrow:
NEIL McFADYEN: "I got a good jump, but missed a gear on the opening lap which dropped me down a couple of spots. I fought back and was right on Bargs as we headed down to turn nine. He covered, but I think he was still in V8 Supercar mode and left some room, so I took the opportunity and got into the lead!
"It’s nice and close and we hope that we’re as quick tomorrow. Coming from position six in race two will make it interesting, but over the race distance, I think there’s enough time to make it through to the front. We won’t be making any silly moves and will just bide our time."
JASON BARGWANNA: "Neil drove well. It was a tough race and is setting up for a good couple of races tomorrow.
"I was a little cautious on the opening lap and gave him a little bit of room and he took advantage of that. There was no point banging wheels in the opening race of the weekend and ruining both our rounds.
"We are aiming to accumulate more points in the reverse grid tomorrow and hopefully the tyre strategy that we have in place for the weekend will pay off."
Tomorrow’s schedule for MINI CHALLENGE includes two races, the second with the top six from today’s race reversed, before the points from the two races are combined to arrive at the race three grid, which will be shown on the Seven Network from (approximately) 3:15pm nationally.
MINI CHALLENGE SUNDAY SCHEDULE
Race 2 (top 6 Reversed): 10:20am-10:40am
Race 3: 2:35pm-2:55pm (TV from 3:15pm)
