Charles Hunter Adds His Name to the Eureka Series Round Winners
By Ian Vale
After a day of trying weather conditions with temperatures around the forty degree mark there was no stopping Charles Hunter from taking his first Eureka Garages & Sheds Series feature win with Terry Rankin doing a great job to take second place leaving Brock Hallet to fill third place.
The venue operators had a few hurdles to conquer to try and give the competitors a suitable race track for the night’s events but the heat of the day continued into the evening to make their job that bit harder. While the track was relatively good during the heat races that produced good heat racing it was when the final two events of the night were run it was the drivers that would have look for the best setup and manage their tyres during these events.
Occasionally some drivers have one of those nights where everything seems to go there way and for Charles Hunter that was the case in round ten of the Eureka Garages & Sheds Sprintcar Series. Charles drove well during the heats races to qualify as the top point’s scorer and give himself the best change to a take a maiden win in the Eureka Series. As mentioned in the round 10 media pre release Charles has probably been the most consistent driver over the last few rounds and this round was no different.
While a few of the more fancied drivers the likes of Darren Mollenoyux, Brett Milburn and Brayden Parr had to come from the B Main event it was going to be tough job for these drivers to get near the front in the Eureka Garages & Sheds A main event.
The Main event stating order was set with V73 Charles Hunter and S13 Brock Hallet on the front row to be followed by the current Series points leader in the VA71 machine, Corey McCullagh with VA29 Terry Rankin along side of him then it would be V98 Peter Doukas, V35 Jamie Veal, V8 Bobby Daly, V25 Jack Lee, V19 Sam Wren, VA81 Rhys Baxter, V42 Jye Okeeffe and VA75 David Donegan along with the B Main transferring drivers.
Hunter won the start but is was Rankin that quickly made a move into second place that would see Hallet relegated back to third place and McCullagh back to forth by the completion of lap one. Mollenoyux was the big mover on lap one where he passed four cars on the outside only to have Milburn demote him back one spot on the next lap.
With the field running nose to tail in the early laps Rankin was keeping in close proximity of Hunter with Hallet, McCullagh, and Veal who was up one place ahead of Doukas but Doukas had other plans and blasted past Veal to fifth place on lap five.
Farrer also made a few moves in the early stages to move from eighteenth place to thirteen passing Mollenoyux for the spot, Mollenoyux was quick to respond and regain the position back on the next lap.
Up front Hunter had caught the tail end cars but catching was one thing and passing was another with the slick track conditions, the tail end cars were keeping a good pace where Hunter was playing safe knowing if the following driver (Rankin) caught him he would have to try to go to the outside and that would most probably have been a bad move.
Five laps to go and the cautions lights were on for Doukas who slowed with a flat tyre. Now with clean air once again Hunter was wasted no time to open a big gap back to Rankin who in turn put a good gap between himself and the perusing trio of Hallet, McCullagh and Veal who were fighting for the final podium spot, but up front Hunter sailed in to take the win with a comfortable margin over Rankin while Hallet held out McCullagh and Veal while Daly came home to claim sixth place.
Rounding out the finishing order were Lee, Okeeffe, Baxter, Wren, Mollenoyux, Milburn, Farrer, Parr, Donegan, Ellis and Paul Solomon.
With Charles Hunter taking the win and his good performances of late Hunter he has closed to the gap to the current Eureka Series point’s leader Corey McCullagh to just ninety five points and with two rounds of the Series still to go the Series is still wide open.
Heat wins went to, VA75 David Donegan, S13 Brock Hallet, V12 Kristy Ellis, VA71 Corey McCullagh, V73 Charles Hunter, V8 Bobby Daly, V35 Jamie Veal, VA29 Terry Rankin.
The B Main event was won by V68 Brett Milburn from V52 Darren Mollenoyux, V12 Kristy Ellis, V77 Brayden Parr, V7 Paul Solomon and V34 Brenten Farrer, these six drivers transferred to the A Main.
The C Main win went to V78 Chris Campbell, 2nd was V45 Mike Van Bremen, 3rd Dennis Jones and 4th place was taken by VA88 Grant Stansfield, these top four drivers would go thru to the B Main.
The F500’s gave us great racing with Stef Munn taking the win from Jack Bell and Dion Bellman and Jordan Ray for 4th.
Images from Cory Gibson, Inaction Photography and Grumpy & sons
