NSW Northern Zone Leopard Series, Rnd 4

by Colleen Thornhill

The Leopard boys turned up to Dubbo on the 15th and 16th of August to compete in the 4th Round of the NSW Northern Zone Leopard Qualifier series. The round was held  in conjunction with the Dubbo Club’s annual Gold Cup meeting.

The club always makes the Leopard drivers feel most welcome as they do all other classes. The weekend was a little down on numbers for all classes as the event clashed with a Sydney meeting but this did not affect the excitement created by the excellent racing in all the classes.

LEOPARD LIGHT

The Leopards were down a couple of the usual drivers due to other commitments but nevertheless the racing was most entertaining. As the two top drivers from the previous round were missing at this meeting it enabled the others to battle it out for the top positions.

HEAT 1
In the first heat Local driver Adam Sharam showed the visitors he was the man to beat by winning the heat with Gary Ellis coming in 2nd and the “old bloke” Max Thornhill coming in 3rd.

HEAT 2
The second heat placings were a big surprise when Adam Sharam had a spin coming through the field from his allotted grid position. This allowed Gary Ellis and Max Thornhill to get a good lead to enable them to fight it out to the finish. On the second last lap Max Thornhill managed to pass Gary Ellis under brakes and held on for the heat win.

PRE-FINAL
On Sunday morning  the “old bloke” Max Thornhill had all the young guns a bit worried as he started the Pre-final on pole position with Gary Ellis beside him and Danny Baldwin “with his now second-hand X1 chassis” on grid 3, Adam Sharam on grid 4 and Craig Masters on grid 5. The racing got off to an exciting start with Danny Baldwin jumping to the lead and holding it to the end and just finishing ahead of Adam Sharam with Max Thornhill coming in 3rd.

FINAL
Coming into the start of the 16 lap final the winner was anybody’s guess but it was the local Driver Adam Sharam who was easily the fastest and took the win from Danny Baldwin and Gary Ellis followed by a tired “Old Bloke” in 3rd and in 5th was Craig Masters. In the Leopard Heavy class Paul “Big Boy” Hull took an easy win in all Heats and Finals.

The racing moves on to the last round to be held at Tamworth’s Allan Cox Cup in September where all the Northern Zone Leopard series drivers will be. This should provide some exciting racing by the likes of Scott Connole and Gary Ellis who are super quick at Tamworth. Adam Sharam will be coming over from Dubbo to compete which should make the placings very interesting at the end of the day.

MORE NEWS
On a very good note, the Leopard numbers in NSW are looking good for 2010 with a couple of Dubbo drivers progressing from TAG Restricted and moving into Leopard as well as a couple more from Tamworth. This will see a steady growth in the class which provides a motor that is very user friendly.

Also we have found this series to be very friendly within the class as all the drivers get along very well both socially and at the tracks. Very rarely do you see ALL the drivers shake each other’s hands before and after each race, but the Leopard drivers in our series do at ‘every’ meeting which is good to see.

The final round of the Northern Zone Series Leopard Qualifyer will be held on Sunday 20th September at Tamworth's Oakburn Park Raceway sponsored by Master Karts.

For more information contact Max Thornhill colthor@bigpond.net.au 

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