By Ebony McQuinn.
Last night the crew competed in the Victorian 410 Title hosted by Premier Speedway, Warrnambool. Cold weather saw the track become completely different than during Speedweek just the day before. The crew were feeling confident for a better performance after slipping into the Speedweek B-Main.
Starting the evening with hotlaps to warm up, Waters made contact with the wall heading into turn 3, creating slight damage to the right rear tyre. The crew changed the tyre and luckily, found no other obvious damage to the rear. Sending him out for time trials, Waters achieved a time of 11.801, the fastest of his group and earning him the Quick Time award, only the second of his 410 career. He was third fastest of the 45 car field, only 0.07s off Jamie Veal in first.
His qualifying result saw Waters start form 6th in Heat 3 of the 5 heats. Quick off the line, Waters moved up to fourth in only the first corner before a yellow light at the end of the first lap put him back to sixth. The restart didn't last long as Jock Goodyer spun into the wall, bringing out a red light. As two cars retired during the red light, Waters completed the restart from fourth on the grid. Waters was quick off the line again as the green light was shown, rocketing into third, before passing Jordyn Charge in the V60 for second. Unfortunately Waters wasn't quick enough to catch Jett Bell in v88 for first.
After his first and second results, Waters had gathered enough points to start from third on the grid for the A-Main. His best starting position ever accomplished for a 410 A-Main. The crew were elated. The three feature races of the night were run back to back, so changes were made to the car to suit the worsening track condition. Disastrously, as the crew prepared to roll the car onto the grid for the A-Main, Waters discovered this his brakes weren't working. Acting quickly to resolve the issue, the McQuinn Electrical V6 car almost didn't make it onto the track. A two minute delay allowed for the issue to be fixed and speed onto the track where the rest of the field was already waiting.
A poor start saw Waters' front gain air, slowing him tremendously. Thankfully, a yellow light allowed Waters a restart from third. Alas, the restart didn't hold success as Waters dropped into fifth; Dropping into sixth a lap later. A relatively undisturbed A-Main, Waters finished the feature in sixth. While no podium was achieved, every at Chief Racing are delighted to achieve their best result.
Driver's Quote:
"Night 2 in Warrnambool for the Vic Title was a really good night. Just stepped it up on last night. Time trialled quickest which was really cool, it set up our night and had a good run through the heat to get second from sixth. Started third in the final; I dropped a few spots at the start but got a few back through the race. Cool to be running with the good guys. Had a straight car, it's getting better and I'm getting better; we're making progress. Big thanks to the team and all the sponsors"
Gallery:
Photos by Ebony McQuinn
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