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SETON PACES SYDNEY PRACTICE
GLENN SETON has set the pace in practice for this weekend’s final round of the 2016 Touring Car Masters season on the streets of Sydney Olympic Park.
The double Australian Touring Car / Supercars champion hustled his Thunder Road Racing Team Ford Mustang around the 3.4km circuit the fastest of anybody in practice two: his 1m36.55s lap comfortably eclipsing his own circuit qualifying record set back in 2011.
Championship leader John Bowe was second trailing his long-time sparring partner by just 0.3 seconds and also lapping underneath the 1m37s benchmark.
Steven Johnson’s pace-setting time from practice one (1m37.41s) saw him third fastest of the day in the Synergy Falcon GTHO.
Hot conditions were the order of the day: more than 35-degrees recorded during the peak period of the day’s running.
With track time at a premium Johnson paced the first session and edged Seton and Bowe by just three-tenths of a second. Johnson saved his run until late as the track rubbered-in and improved.
The second session saw Seton rocket to the top moments before the session was red flagged when Eddie Abelnica crashed his Melbourne’s Cheapest Cars XB Falcon at turn one 14 minutes into the 20-minute session.
With the right-front corner of the Falcon damaged Abelnica needed to be recovered by trackside officials with the session ultimately called short.
The crash was a blow for the Melbourne driver one of three contenders for the outright ProMaster TCM title this weekend.
Abelnica trails Bowe by 67 points heading into tomorrow’s opening race and has Seton just five points behind in third: giving his team added motovation to return the car to the track for tomorrow’s action.
With Seton quickest overall Bowe and Johnson remained in close company with the top three looking hard to beat based on practice times alone. ÂÂ
Jason Gomersall was fourth overall in the iseek.com racing Torana edging out Adam Bressington’s Whiteline Racing / Fabre Camaro.
Despite the damage Abelnica ended the day seventh – just one spot behind Jim Richards’ AMC Javelin on the overall practice order.
Eighth was Cameron Tilley’s Anglomoil Valliant Pacer the six-cylinder Pacer looking strong on the Sydney streets. Mark King and Cameron Tilley completed the top-10.
Tomorrow will see qualifying (11:10am) and Race 1 (1:55pm) broadcast live on FOX Sports Motorsport. Race 1 will also be shown on the Ten Network on free-to-air around Australia.
RESULTS: PRACTICE COMBINED
Pos Car Competitor/Team               Driver                  Vehicle             Cap  CL         Fastest…Lap       Gap | ||||||||||||
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
1   30 Thunder Road Racing Team Austr Glenn Seton (QLD)       1964 Ford Mustang Co 5000             P2 1:36.5593R |  | |||||||||||
2   18 Wilson Security / PAYCE       John Bowe (VIC)         1974 Holden Torana 5047             P2 1:36.9490r 0:00.3897 |  | |||||||||||
3   17 Synergy Race Engines          Steve Johnson (QLD)     1971 Ford Falcon XY 5800             P1 1:37.4148r 0:00.8555 |  | |||||||||||
4   35 iseek Racing                  Jason Gomersall (QLD)   1978 Holden Torana 5000             P2 1:38.4523 0:01.8930 |  | |||||||||||
5   95 Whiteline Racing / Fabre Austr Adam Bressington (NSW)  1969 Chevrolet Camar 5800             P2 1:38.6931 0:02.1338 |  | |||||||||||
6    2 Shannons Insurance            Jim Richards (VIC)      1972 AMC Javelin    5898             P2 1:39.3792 0:02.8199 |  | |||||||||||
7   48 Sydney’s Cheapest Cars        Eddie Abelnica (VIC)    1974 Ford Falcon XB 5800             P2 1:39.5660 0:03.0067 |  | |||||||||||
8   60 Glennan Transport/ANGLOMOIL Lu Cameron Tilley (NSW)    1969 Valiant Pacer  4390             P2 1:39.9437 0:03.3844 |  | |||||||||||
9   85 Whiteline Racing / King Spring Mark King (QLD)         1970 Chevrolet Camar 5800             P2 1:41.2484 0:04.6891 |  | |||||||||||
10  88 TIFS – Warehousing & Distribut Tony Karanfilovski (NSW) 1969 Ford Mustang Tr 5800             P2 1:42.9029 0:06.3436 |  | |||||||||||
11  28 Tilley Auto Garage            Brad Tilley (NSW)       1964 Ford Mustang Co 4735             P2 1:43.3959 0:06.8366 |  | |||||||||||
12  74 Lyndways Builders             Wayne Mercer (VIC)      1971 Ford Falcon XY 5800             P2 1:43.7307 0:07.1714 |  | |||||||||||
13  46 THD Motorsport                Leo Tobin (VIC)         1969 Ford Boss Musta 5000             P2 1:44.4118 0:07.8525 |  | |||||||||||
14  19 Tincone Industrial Services   Darren Beale (QLD)      1972 Holden Monaro 5800             P1 1:49.6799 0:13.1206 |  | |||||||||||
15   4 Skye Sands                    Rusty French (VIC)      1970 Ford Mustang Fa 5800             P1 2:05.9802 0:29.4209 |  |