South Australia’s Bryce Washington has posted his first race win in the NATRAD Lamborghini Gallardo at Bathurst’s Mount Panorama circuit for Round 3 of the Australian GT Championship held on Saturday April 7.
Washington was never headed over the 12 laps of the 6.213 kilometre circuit, but was closely shadowed all the way by second placed David Wall in the RDS Wall Racing Porsche GT3 RSR who eventually took the chequered flag just .2289 of a second in arrears of the Lamborghini.
Third place went to Allan Simonsen in the Consolidated Chemical Ferrari 360 GT ahead of fourth placed Ian Palmer having his race debut in the Instant Foundations sponsored Lamborghini Gallardo that only arrived in the country days before being taken to Bathurst.
An early casualty was John Teulan in the Ferrari 430 Challenge who went off at McPhillamy Park after only a lap and half.
Performing well in the early period of the event was Gary Dann in the Supaloc Porsche GT3 Cup Car who went from 15th for the rolling start to 11th before the intervention of the Safety Car as a result of Teulan’s accident. Dann eventually finished in 10th despite a spin at the Chase on the last lap.
With the resumption of racing the leading three - Washington, Wall and Simonsen maintained station while Palmer gradually fell back from the trio despite recording a best race time of 2:16.2703 as compared with his qualifying effort of 2:19.2054.
Washington, who incurred both a weight and ride height penalty as a result of his pole setting time of 2:13.2819, established a new lap record time of 2:12.6963 during the race.
Damien Flack (Porsche GT3 Cup Car) finished in 5th place with seven other examples of the German marque following in the order of Sven Burchartz, Bill Pye, Max Twigg, Paul Tresidder, Gary Dann, Ross Lilley, and Paul Bolinowsky.
Peter Lucas in the Urban Arrangements Lotus Elise finished in 13th.
Other than the Ferrari of John Teulan, the only other retirement was that of Matthew Turnbill (Porsche GT3 Cup Car) on lap 6 with a fluid leak, while Mark Eddy (Ferrari 360 Challenge) was a non starter with an intermittent ABS brake system fault.
An interested spectator at Mount Panorama was John Cais who promises to have a particularly exciting new car joining the GT Championship ranks in the very near future
Results
Pos Car Entrant Driver Vehicle Cap CL Laps Race.Time Fastest...Lap
1 54 NATRAD Radiator & Auto Air Bryce Washington (SA) Lamborghini Gallardo 5000 12 30:16.6776 8 2:12.6963R
2 38 RDS Wall Racing P/L David Wall (NSW) Porsche GT3 RSR 3600 12 30:16.9065 8 2:13.5256r
3 4 Consolidated Chemical Co Allan Simonsen (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 30:22.1807 8 2:13.9157r
4 20 Instant Foundations Ian Palmer (QLD) Lamborghini Gallardo 5000 12 30:57.9723 5 2:16.2703
5 19 "Nexus Cleaning, Roock" Damien Flack (QLD) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 31:02.0451 8 2:18.0311
6 90 Macpherson & Kelley Lawyers Sven Burchartz (VIC) Porsche GT3 3600 12 31:05.7827 8 2:17.7686
7 44 Autohaus Hamilton Bill Pye (NSW) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 31:11.1084 5 2:18.6798
8 18 Max Twigg Max Twigg (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 31:12.3434 12 2:18.7424
9 23 Pelorus Property Group Paul Tresidder (NSW) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 31:34.0080 8 2:21.3870
10 10 Supaloc Steel Building Sys Gary Dann (SA) Porsche GT3 Cup
Car 3600 12 31:50.1403 8 2:21.1072
11 51 Koala Furniture Ross Lilley (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 12 31:52.8867 10 2:22.9652
12 45 Bolin Racing Paul Bolinowsky (NSW) Porsche GT3 3600 12 31:57.5262 8 2:23.3584
13 99 Urban Arrangements Peter Lucas (NSW) Lotus Elise 1998 12 32:01.6066 11 2:22.1816
14 32 Lynns Building Materials Blake Lynn (NSW) Porsche GT3 3600 12 32:19.3365 9 2:22.8111
15 46 Travelplan Anthony Skinner (NSW) Porsche GT3 3600 12 32:23.6572 12 2:25.9279
16 91 Smith Brothers Plumbing Graeme Cook (SA) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 11 30:37.9707 4 2:27.8401
17 36 Buzza Auto Electrics Peter Fountas (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 11 30:50.5859 11 2:29.3983
18 33 Kirchner Constructions Fraser Kirchner (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 11 31:03.2089 5 2:34.6244
19 73 Data Recovery Services P/L Eric Northwood (NSW) Lotus Elise 1800 11 32:04.3870 4 2:40.8059
Did Not Finish
DNF 11 PROMAT Matthew Turnbull (VIC) Porsche GT3 Cup Car 3600 6 17:33.2878 5 2:24.4367
DNF 88 Industry Central Stahlwille John Teulan (QLD) Ferrari 430 Challeng 4300 1 2:22.6719 1 2:22.6719