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Practice pace puts Miedecke on pole at Sandown
GEORGE MIEDECKE will be on pole for the fourth round of the Gulf Western Oil Touring Car Masters Series following a rain-interrupted day at Sandown Raceway.
The sole 20-minute qualifying session was red-flagged due to an on-track incident, a lengthy delay meaning the session was not restarted – with only half the field having set a competitive lap time.
The results will instead revert to the times from Practice which was held in dry conditions earlier in the day.
Miedecke topped that session with a 1m14.8009s best, 0.3 seconds ahead of Ryan Hansford’s Multispares Torana.
It’s Miedecke’s first TCM pole position and the fourth different polesitter from four rounds this year.
Steven Johnson’s return to TCM was productive, the Queenslander finishing third in his first competitive steer of the #33 Ford Mustang.
Championship leader will start his 300th TCM race from fourth position alongside his old friend and former teammate.
Andrew Fisher’s strong recent form continued with fifth while Adam Bressington’s comeback netted him sixth in the repaired Whiteline Racing Camaro SS.
Cam McConville was seventh, Jamie Tilley eighth while Tony Karanfilovski was ninth.
Cameron Tilley completed the Top-10 in practice in his repaired Valiant Pacer.
Ben Dunn was a strong 11th in his Chevy Monza – resplendent in a new yellow livery – with Leo Tobin next.
Dave Hender, Peter Burnitt, Damien Gambold, Keith Kassulke, Warren Trewin, Gary Finemore, Danny Buzadzic and Jim Pollicina – who failed to complete a lap – completed the field.
The Gulf Western Oil Touring Car Masters field will tackle two races on Saturday at the SpeedSeries and Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships event at Sandown.
The first will be the inverted grid Trophy Race, which will see the top-10 cars reversed and sent to the back of the field. That was will be live, ad-break free and on demand on Stan Sport.
The first championship race of the weekend starts later in the day and will shown on Stan Sport as well as the Nine Network.