Pierce Lehane has been victorious in both of his Rotax Light heat races (Pic: AF Images)
The entrée has been served for the 2012 Rotax Nationals in the form of some scintillating heat race action at Dubbo, now the focused turns to what will be delivered during main course tomorrow.
During today’s action it was Exprit driver Pierce Lehane who laid down the challenge to his opposition in the Rotax Light ranks.
After the Sydney teenager set the pace in qualifying, he dominated both of his heat races today to finish with two comprehensive victories. However, he’s yet to line up against David Sera – this will occur in the third heat tomorrow morning.
“I’m pushing pretty hard out there, so far the Exprit kart has been on rails but we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow – that’s when the green plate will be handed out,” said Lehane.
“Dave has been in both heats following mine, so I’ve headed straight over to watch his races. He’s been strong in both of those but we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow.”
The opening two heat victories in Rotax Heavy were shared between the two Matthews – Greenbury and Wall. Adam Hunter and Paul Rodgers have kept the pair honest throughout today’s proceedings.
In the battle for the Junior Rotax National honours, there’s no outright favourite with the likes of Liam McLellan, Thomas Randle, Andrew Kahl and Joseph Burton-Harris, who suffered an engine failure in his opening heat race, dicing it out at the front of the field in the heat races today.
Randle was narrowly beaten to line in the opening heat by Liam McLellan, however, a starting infringement for the latter dropped him to ninth place in the standings leaving Randle to inherit the win. The FA Kart driver’s pair of victories sees him enter tomorrow’s final heat race with an unblemished scorecard while James Abela’s second and fourth place has him second in the standings.
In the other categories it is Bruce Otter who is dominating Rotax Over 40’s while New Zealander Niki Urwin and Daniel Richert have diced it out at the front of the DD2 Masters category. After being upstaged during qualifying Jason Pringle, who finished runner-up at the Rotax Max Challenge Grand Final last year, set the pace in the opening heat of the DD2 category – Lucas Ward fought back to win heat two.
Tomorrow’s action will begin earlier than scheduled with warm-up firing up following a 7:30am drivers briefing. The final round of heats will then be completed ahead of the pre-finals and finals.
To view the full results from today’s action please click here.
