Round 3 Preview | QTCC Season reaches mid-way point with two-day QR outing
The opening month of winter has been rather busy in the city of Ipswich. Two weeks ago, Willowbank Raceway hosted the 53rd running of the Winternationals. Last weekend, it was horsepower of a different kind, for the 2021 TAB Ipswich Cup, and now all roads lead back to the end of Champions Way in Willowbank, for the final instalment of the 2021 Ipswich Festival of Horsepower, which will see the third round of the Brisbane Collision Centre Queensland Touring Car Championship headline a massive weekend of racing at Queensland Raceway.
The QTCC boasts a field of thirty-two for this weekend, and it’s the start of a very busy period for all concerned.
The end of this round will mark the half-way mark of the championship, but it’s also the first of two championship rounds, in just sixteen days.
Once this round concludes on Sunday, teams and drivers will have twelve days to turn their cars around, ahead of the fourth round of the season, at Lakeside Park, on July 10 and 11, in what will be the final trip to the iconic Kurwongbah venue, for the QTCC, in 2021.
Round 2 produced no shortage of drama, with many drivers spending the five weeks between rounds trying to get on top of mechanical gremlins.
Matthew Haak is a clear championship leader coming into this round, with a 512-point advantage over his brother, Cameron Haak, while Robert Bellinger is third.
The Group B race is wide open, thanks to Michael Woodcroft being bumped into Group A. As it stands, Rob Droder is the leader, with a 417-point advantage over Peter Bray, while Gary Anger is a further 38 points back.
Neither Haak or Droder can be considered comfortable championship leaders though, because 500 points are awarded to the winner of each championship race, so just one DNF will bring both of them back to their respective packs.
The points race in Group C is far tighter, with just 54 points separating the top three drivers – Andrew Knight, Paul Bonaccorso and Matthew Devitt.
Stuart Walker is back on the grid, after engine issues saw him miss all four races in the previous round.
Also returning to the grid, in the outright division, is Shannon Cane. The lady racer, and her crew, have spent the entire off-season, and the first few months of 2021, getting her car prepared for a return to racing – after pulling the car apart, and finding some serious issues, mechanically speaking, that needed resolving.
Hopefully, with all the hours they’ve put in, the team will be rewarded with five race finishes this weekend.
Murray Kent swept round 2, and will be looking to do the same in round 3. For championship leader, Matthew Haak, consistency is key to his title hopes, given that Kent missed the opening round.
Sadly, Saxon Moyes – the BMW young gun that took the fight to Haak and Walker at Lakeside – won’t be lining up this weekend. It’s a huge blow to his title tile, because, like Walker, he failed to net any championship points last time out as well, and in a championship where every point counts, this will almost certainly put him out of title contention.
Group B was an ultra-competitive affair last time round, and Gary Anger will be out to try and secure back-to-back round wins, but can expect stiff competition from points leader, Rob Droder, but neither Leon Kemp or Lance Jurgeleit are lining up this week, after the engines of both BMW entries let go last time out.
Group C has seen four different race winners so far in 2021 – Scott Kelly, Mark Hyde, Murray Reilly and Matthew Devitt – but the consistency of Paul Bonaccorso means the Falcon is keeping the competition honest.
Murray Reilly will be looking for his third consecutive pole position on Saturday morning, but will be hoping to turn one-lap pace into a round result, after mechanical dramas saw him retire from race three, and miss race four, in the previous round.
This round of the championship also sees the long awaited, much welcome return of a two-day race meeting – something we haven’t seen in fifteen months, just before COVID forced the 2020 season to be put on hold.
The weather for this weekend isn’t looking ideal, with rain forecast for Friday and Saturday, before clearing up for a dry conclusion to the weekend.
With wet weather racing almost certain this weekend, it’s just another interesting ingredient to take into consideration, in what promises to be a captivating weekend of racing, at a critical point of the season.
The Brisbane Collision Queensland Touring Car Championship will hit the circuit for unofficial practice on Friday, before qualifying take places, from around 9:30am, on Saturday morning.
Races 1 and 2 will be contested on Saturday afternoon, before Races 3, 4 and 5 take place on Sunday.
Much like Round 2, three different track configurations will be used across the weekend, with Races 1 and 3 on the ‘Sprint’ circuit, Races 2 and 4 on the main 3.12km layout, with Race 5 on the ‘Clubman’ circuit, to finish the program.
2500 points are on offer this weekend, and if you can’t be trackside, to see the action LIVE, you’ll hear a FULL REPLAY through West Bremer Radio and 2MCE Sport, early next month, with EXCLUSIVE commentary from Zak Caban.
