May 13, 2015 | General

RARE SPARES ROSE CITY TROPHY – FACTS & STATS

THE ENZED Touring Car Masters has rarely disappointed when competing at the self-proclaimed ‘Nations Action Track’ – Winton Motor Raceway in regional Victoria.

The series has visited Winton four times previously and though John Bowe tops the Winton winners list he’s not dominated proceedings at the rural circuit – in fact Gavin Bullas is the series’ most successful driver at the track in terms of overall round victories.

TCM AT WINTON

Current lap record: John Bowe (2014 – Ford Mustang TransAm) 1m31.1290s
Current Pole Record: John Bowe (2014) 1m30.9921s

RACE WINS:                                         POLE POSITIONS:

John Bowe – 7                                      John Bowe – 4
Gavin Bullas – 2                                   
Drew Marget – 1
Tony Karanfilovski – 1
Jim Richards – 1                                   

LAST TIME WE MET – WINTON:

The TCM field rolled into Winton last April for round two of the 2014 series and it continued the ultra-competitive start to the year seen in Adelaide with three winners from three races a highlight.

True to form John Bowe stormed to Pole Position with a record 1m30.9921s lap that locked away the top spot by a full 0.8 seconds but that wasn’t the best performance of the session.

The star performer in qualifying was the performance of Adelaide Porsche ace Greg Keene who put his diminutive 3.2-litre Porsche 911 RS into fourth place just 0.1s behind second-placed Jim Richards. Though fearful of being swamped at the start by the more powerful V8’s Winton’s tight layout has always helped the smaller capacity cars over the years.

Bowe won race one from Richards and Miedecke while a surprised Tony Karanfilovski became the first repeat winner of the season when he won the reversed top 10 race two ahead of Bowe and Abelnica. A race three victory for Jim Richards handed him the Pro Master round victory by a mere handful of points while Tony K won ProAm.

STREAK OVER?

THE Longest running streak of pole positions in ENZED TCM history will be over this weekend.

Mustang ‘Sally’ has dominated qualifying for the last two years with John Bowe scoring nine consecutive pole positions between the Phillip Island 2013 grand finale’ and Round two in Tasmania this year.

Though Bowe missed Symmons Plains his replacement – V8 ace Steven Johnson – carried on his form and put the No. 18 Mustang on the top spot. However with Bowe in different wheels this weekend and Mustang Sally not featuring on the entry list it looks like the pole streak will be over.

For the record the last person to be on pole position not driving Mustang Sally was another Ford Legend: Glenn Seton took pole for the Bathurst round in 2013 driving an XY GTHO Ford Falcon.

The last non-Ford to score pole was a Porsche 911 RS driven by Michael Almond way back in Round 2 2013 at Barbagello Raceway – some 16 rounds and more than two years ago! Chevrolet hasn’t claimed a TCM Pole since 2011!

PORSCHE UPSET?

A DARK Horse this weekend could be former Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge champion Sven Burchartz.

The Porsche pilot is looking forward to his second TCM round this year in his IROC Challenge-specification Porsche 911 and hoping that Winton’s reputation as the great leveller will boost him up the field.

Greg Keen qualified fourth at the circuit last year in his similar 911 and Burchartz will be hoping for more of the same.

The IROC Challenge launches at Winton this June – at the Shannons Nationals round – and is something of a spin-off from the TCM Series the IROC cars (based on the inaugural International Race of Champions series held in the ‘states in 1974) running a similar specification to their TCM 911 brethren.

Burchartz will be using this weekend as an extended test for the opening IROC round – but don’t bet on him trying to race at the front too! Fellow IROC racer Rohan Little will also be on track at Winton.

NEW CARS:

John Bowe will debut the brand-new Holden Torana SL/R 5000 built by long-time TCM competitor Gary O’Brien’s Bendigo Retro Muscle Cars business. The car is the fifth such model built for TCM alongside the Carey McMahon (ex-Tony Edwards) entry and Jason Gomersall’s two cars from the iSeek racing stable. Tony Hunter also has a Torana essentially complete however it is yet to race. Bowe’s entry will run the famous Holden ‘308’ / five-litre V8.

Also set to debut this weekend will be a brand new Ford Mustang for Rusty French. A sister car to Gavin Bullas’ Coupe this is another example to emerge from the Prodrive Racing Australia stable.

RETURNING:

Graham Alexander will make a welcome return to ENZED TCM competition this weekend driving his HT Monaro – the only one of the HT / HK shape Monaro’s to run in TCM. Garry Treloar a long-time TCM regular and a fantastic sponsor of several series regulars will also be back on track this time racing the ex-Kassulke / Walmsley HQ.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY:

The two round winners in the 2015 series to date – Steve Johnson and John Bowe – sit only 9^th and 10^th in the ProMaster class standings by virtue of having completed one round each.

As a result consistency has been key so far this year with nothing splitting leader Eddie Abelnica Greg Crick (-5) Jim Richards (-19) and Gavin Bullas (-30) at the top of the table. Despite a horror second round Round 1 winner Andrew Miedecke is only a further nine points back. The top six in class are all covered by less than one race victory’s worth of points.

Cameron Tilley’s two round wins have him on top in ProAm while the same can be said for Tony Hunter in ProSports.

Of the 19 drivers to complete both rounds so far only seven – Cameron Tilley Greg Crick Eddie Abelnica Jim Richards Tony Hunter Leo Tobin and Ian Palmer – have not recorded a DNF in at least one race.