By Phil Michell Motorsport Media
Saturday night saw the fourth night of action for the season at the Murray Machining and Sheds Murray Bridge Speedway with the opening round of the MJS Street Stock Series and the 360/LS Sprintcars featuring along with Wingless Sprints and Junior Sedans. All classes received great support with over 80 cars in the pit area therefore the racing all was highly competitive all night long.
At the competition of the night, it was Northern Territorian Jake Koivumaki who upstaged the local contingent to claim the shortened 20 lap MJS Street Stock feature while Ben Morris won an exciting 360/LS Sprintcars A-Main.
Second place in the Street Stock event went to Drew Flatman, who was unable to repeat his opening night victory, while Nevelle Nitschke, Thomas Garner and Phil Watson completed the top five. Sixth place went the way of Jayden Garner ahead of Curtis Brown, defending series champion Nigel Reichstein, Kye Richardson and Grant Harris.
Earlier heat victories were shared between Phil Watson (2), Drew Flatman, Curtis Brown, Neville Nitschke and Jake Koivumaki while Jarryd Farrell claimed the B-Main.
The 360/LS Sprintcar feature proved to be race of the night with the track conditions providing the drivers to chance to race all over the track. At one point the top four drivers were all racing hard for the win with sliders being traded, especially in turn one.
After leading early pole sitter Craig Vanderstelt lost the lead while battling lapped traffic and would eventually fade to third. Once he got into the lead on lap 15 Ben Morris was unstoppable as he went on to win by over half a second ahead of Ryan Jones and Vanderstelt. Jack McCarthy was the best of the LS powered cars in fourth, while Brendan Guerin, Victorian Phil Micalef, Mark Phillips, Zack Rogerson, Sam Martin, and Bronson Mauro completed the top 10.
The four heat winners were Ryan Jones, Ben Morris, Craig Vanderstelt and Jack McCarthy.
The Junior Sedans were once gain split into Top and New Stars with Mildura racer Chloe McCarthy taking a clean sweep of the New Stars events with two heat wins and the feature victory while Henry Brumfield and Brodie Reichstein battled it out all night in the Top Stars as they shared the heat wins before Brumfield got the better of Reichstein in the final.
The Wingless Sprints were also out in force with 34 drivers in attendance including the likes of current Australian Champion Tyson Martin and dual Champion Joel Chadwick, but it was a young Riverland racer who upstaged them all. After starting from position five Ryley Hammerstein drove a near perfect race on the bottom side of the racetrack as he edged out Tyson Martin by .171 of a second to claim an unlikely win in his first start of the season. Third place went to Rylan Furler who claimed his second consecutive podium of the season, while Kaitlin Vickers, Tate Cowie, Chadwick, Jordon Bolotho, Thomas Walkom, Casey Atkinson, and Darryl Sloan rounded out the top 10.
The heat winners were Sam Martin, Brett Ireland, Jesse Alexander, Riley Hammerstein, Tate Cowie, and Rylan Furler.
The next event on the Murray Machining and Sheds Murray Bridge Speedway calendar is November 8 with the Formula 500 King of the Bridge the main feature along with Round 2 of the MJS Street Stock Series.
PHOTO: KNJ Photography
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