News

December 2, 2016 | General

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.  

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 ÂÂ