Victorian Titles - Round 2 Race Report

They all said we were mad racing at Winton in the middle of winter, however Friday morning early we left the heater and made the shortest drive we have for the year to Winton Raceway near Benalla in Victoria for the 2nd round of the Victorian Titles. The weather was cool but the skies were clear when we arrived at the track for the practice day. Winton is by far Brando’s favorite track and we hoped for great results from him over the weekend. He was as per normal, keen to get on the bike and turn some laps. Friday was spent mainly chasing set up and gearing, however it was only a couple of months since we had done the FX-Treme series meeting at Winton, so really not that much was needed to be done. Brando just turned laps, burnt fuel and generally got the lines right on a track that he has now done plenty of laps on.

Saturday’s weather was cooler and slightly overcast however no rain was expected. Brandon complained of a lack of grip on the near freezing cold track. We made some small adjustments trying to give him more drive off the corners. The juniors get only one chance at qualifying, and Brando managed a 1:53.2, which was 5 seconds off his quickest time around Winton. With the track being so cold, we were happy with the time, knowing that if it warmed up Brando would go quicker. 7th place in qualifying amongst the 13 other bikes was a great result, with Brandon most proud of the fact that there were some 80cc bikes behind him on the start grid.

The races combine the 70cc bikes, the 80cc bikes, and the 150cc four strokes bikes in the one race, however they are scored separately. The grid was full of eager young kids ready to blast round the track, and there was plenty of good natured teasing and smart ass remarks between the kids before qualifying started.

Results for Saturday

Race 1………..3rd place
Race 2………..3rd place
Race 3………..2nd place

Brandon was real happy with the results on a cold track, but was hoping to push harder on Sunday. He did manage to get his times down to 1:50.3 which was a 3 second improvement over his qualifying time. Sunday was FREEZING……Brando elected to throw on some new rubber before heading out for morning warm up. We were concerned with the lack of grip and hoped that the new tyre’s would give us a slight advantage over the others on track.

Race results for Sunday

Race 4……………2nd
Race 5……………2nd
Race 6……………3rd

Brandon finished the race meeting tied on 114 points with Luke Mitchell, but due to Luke finishing in front of him in the last race Brando was officially placed in 3rd place overall for the weekend. We were real happy with the results, and happy that Brando and the bikes came home in one piece.

We would like to congratulate Zac Zanesco (1st) and Luke Mitchell (2nd) for the way they rode, and the results they achieved over the weekend. Zac has been the one to beat all year; however we can’t seem to bridge the gap at the moment, and Luke rode very well at a track he hadn’t seen in a long time.
We would also like to make special note of how Patrick Griffin from the Northern Territory went on the weekend. After travelling 3000kms, and riding a track he had never seen, amongst a group of riders he had done very minimal laps with, his times consistently fell all weekend. Well done mate and we hope to see you again soon.

Our next race meeting will be the 14th-15th August at Broadford. Hopefully the weather is kinder and Brandon gets the result he hopes for.
Special mention again must go to Rick Heffernan for once again supplying us with a bike that ran faultlessly all weekend, and had enough punch to mix it with the bigger capacity engines. We would like to thank Preston Motorcycle Club for making these events happen. Without their support of junior racing, we would have no where to ride.

Brandon’s Personal Sponsors.

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