In the final round of
Racecentre’s Mixed league the points were tallied up and drop weeks accounted
for, in order to paint the championship picture. Sitting pretty was Mr Michael
Palladino - all but guaranteed the title. To his advantage, the league called
upon his imagination for a car/track combination. His dream of rewriting the
1975 F1 World Championship at an ’88 rendition of the iconic Imola circuit
could perhaps come true. Despite fixed setups, each car appeared to display
unique personalities which required machine experimentation during practice.
Come Qualifying, and Michael topped the charts with a 1:42.848 – 1.3 seconds
over David Lord then Ross Rizzo.
Race One – 10 laps
A few guys
including Nathan Tregarthen and Sam Owen begin the night with big incidents on
the opening lap. Michael finds himself as the meat in a Rizzo sandwich but soon
joins a long list of early pitters. The drivers found themselves in a delicate
game of preserving their used tyres from qualifying versus pit-stopping at 1975
speeds (i.e. not quite like our modern 3 second stops!). Tyres preservation
won-out as demonstrated by David and his McLaren M23B. Michael took second
whilst Francarlo Rizzo took third and the chance to move up a position or two
in the championship standings.
Race Two – 14 laps
Absolutely
awesome racing throughout the whole pack, side-by-side over the whole lap (and
clean despite the reverse gird)! The two blue Tyrrells of Jason Brooks and
Jeremy Persnez were the first to let the pack get away – mistakes possibly
contributed to excessive cloud of tyre smoke of the locked up cars in front. By
the second lap though, Michael had already managed to go from last to first!
Tyre conservation as proven prior became the popular choice for race two as
none of the top-6 finishes visited the pits. 1. Michael P., 2. David L., 3.
Ross R.
Race Three – 20 laps
Tallying up
the results of the first two races provided a rather interesting scenario for the
finale. Every driver was equal to at least one other driver in terms of round
points accrued thus far – meaning every spot gained during this race could
affect the overall standings of the championship. Sam Owen had a disastrous
start, turning hard left into the barriers whilst David slid back to
Rival-Michael’s fortune. By the halfway point David had muscled his way back to
3rd to pester Ross – both having their sights on Michael less than
half a second up the road. David dives out of the battle and into the pits.
Michael goes on the next lap, Ross on the one after. But David leapfrogs, only
to be passed again … swaps again … and again! Ross who’d been in the best
spectators’ seat gets within DRS range of the two of them but is 30 years too
early to make it work. At lap 15, David pits, leaving Ross to take on Michael
‘mano a mano’. He gets his nose in front, not once, but twice … actually many
more times than that! Meanwhile Jason, Jeremy and Scott Durham (who were all
tied for round points) are locked within a second of each other. On the final
lap, Ross makes one last stand against the Palladino Juggernaut, down the
inside … holding him off … until the last sector and locks up! Move over Niki
Lauda, Michael Palladino takes all the marbles – the win, the round, the
championship!
Michael
finds himself rewarded with a few goodies including; a Racecentre cap, a snazzy
Pepsi headset and some movie tickets (presuming for the epic Rush). However,
the granddaddy of prizes is the exclusive ‘Golden Ticket’ – AKA, the chance to
compete for a full race weekend and training in an Aussie Racing car at the
Sydney 500 valued at $12,000! We wish him all the best for his upcoming
competition as he takes on our other winners. Remember, there are only a few of
these tickets remaining so register quickly for our upcoming events!
1st |
Michael Palladino |
117 |
2nd |
David Lord |
102 |
3rd |
Ross Rizzo |
93 |
4th |
Iain Salteri |
83 |
5th |
Jeremy Pernesz |
75 |
6th |
Jason Brooks |
71 |
7th |
Scott Durham |
65 |
8th |
Francarlo Rizzo |
64 |
9th |
Sam Owen |
55 |
10th |
Nathan Trentgarthen |
55 |
11th |
Shane Gilfeather |
21 |
12th |
Enda Murphy |
20 |
13th |
Bobby Leprem |
12 |
14th |
Darren C |
8 |
15th |
Josh Hunter |
8 |
16th |
Andre Heimgartner |
6 |
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