R2 RACES - Dumbrell blitzes Konica field
6/5/2002 0:16 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Paul Dumbrell was Skaife-like in his dominance of the second round of the Konica V8 Supercar Series at Phillip Island Raceway today.
The 19-year-old was the class of the field, blitzing main rival Dale Brede in his Wynns Commodore to convincingly win all three races.
Even in the second 20-minute sprint, when he was forced to start from tenth on the grid under the controversial reserve grid system, Dumbrell stormed through the field to take the chequered flag by five seconds. He won the 35-minute finale by almost 14 seconds.
Dumbrell now holds an imposing 155-point championship lead over Brede with three rounds remaining.
Brede had to be content with the second tier of the podium, powerless to stop Dumbrell throughout the day.
He was runner-up in race one and three, but couldn’t pick off as many cars as Dumbrell in the reverse grid race, finishing fifth.
“I was reasonable happy with our pace in race one but knew we had to get another two or three tenths [of a second] out of the Gulf Western Falcon to take on Dumbrell in race two,” he said.
“Unfortunately the changes we made backfired and the car performed badly in race two and that’s where we lost contact with Paul.
“It may not have been the result we ultimately would have liked [but] we are still right behind Paul in the championship.”
Greg Crick was third overall on the day, retaining third in the championship.
V8 Supercar rookie Mark Porter finished an impressive fourth in the points after a second-place finish in race two. Porter’s Hydrolink Falcon is prepared by Paul Weel’s Gold Coast-based Level 1 operation.
Super Cheap Auto Racing’s Luke Youlden was similarly impressive, improving throughout the day to finish on the podium in the final race.
Race two featured a number of controversial incidents, with the field trapped behind the safety car for half the race distance.
Matthew White endured a horror weekend, suffering engine failure before the first race this morning. Two retirements and a 16th in the final event have all but ended his championship hopes.
And Kevin Mundy was relegated to last in the first race after stewards retrospectively docked the Ford driver 40 seconds for a driving infringement during the race.
The third round of the series is at Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway in June.
Race one results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?05/05/2002.PHIL.R5
Race two results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?05/05/2002.PHIL.R8
Race three results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?05/05/2002.PHIL.R11
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