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Farr Wins Capalaba Wreckers Sprintcar Cup
Archerfield Speedway
posted Thursday January 5, 2012.
 It was a hard fought
win against some of the biggest names in the sport but when it was all said and
done Robbie Farr had held off two of the very best in Donny Schatz and Shane
Stewart in the final few laps to claim the 2012 Capalaba Wreckers Sprintcar Cup
at Supercheap Auto Archerfield Speedway on Wednesday night January 4.
Qld has been a happy hunting ground for
Farr and the East Coast Pipelines team the past couple of seasons with a number
of race wins and two Qld Titles to their credit, so in heading back north of the
border after a tough month on the road with World Series Sprintcars they
probably felt good about their chances even in a star studded field that
included the top two drivers in the world.
James McFadden got things under way with the quickest lap of
all thirty-three drivers who timed in, a very tidy 11.470s ahead of Farr's
11.603s, Dave Murcott's 11.645s, Bryan Mann's 11.720s and Rico Abreu's 11.823s.
Shane Stewart was sixth quick ahead of Garry Brazier with Jason Meyer's
eleventh, Brooke Tatnell sixteenth and Donny Schatz back in twenty-second and a
bit of work to do if he was to make the Dash line-up.
With the track wide and offering up two lanes of racing, Grant
Anderson (2), Farr, Schatz (2), Andrew Scheuerle, Peter Lack and Paul Morris all
posted Heat wins with Farr topping the points chart at the end of the qualifying
races.
Eight drivers lined up in the
Dash, as opposed to the normal six, and it was McFadden who again showed his
rivals a clean pair of heels to run out the winner by nearly three seconds from
Farr, Brazier, Murcott, Stewart, Abreu, David Muir and Meyers. Fast time and a
win the Dash for McFadden, it was looking good for the newly crowned World
Series Sprintcars Speedweek Champion.
You don't go to many races and see Brooke Tatnell in the
B-Main, you go to even less and see him miss the transfer. In WSS 1 at
Archerfield back in November he did miss it, in the Sprintcar Cup it was clear
he was not going to let that happen again. From the front row, Brooke led every
lap to win the B with Grant Anderson, Bryan Mann, Andrew Scheuerle, Cameron
Gessner and Peter Lack all joining him in earning an A-Main start.
With the cars lined up on the main
straight, infield announcer Trevor Petts paced his way through the driver
introductions for the sizeable Wednesday night crowd on hand before they pushed
off for the four-wide salute and the thirty-five lap Feature.
Farr jumped out to the lead on the opening
lap with Murcott and Brazier swamping McFadden and Stewart running in fifth
before McFadden clawed his way back past Brazier on the second lap as Schatz
began his move forward from ninth on the grid to sixth by lap seven. Racing hard
for position and using the top and bottom of the race track, the leaders took
some time to get to the tail of the field and Garry Brazier may have wished they
took a little longer when he rode a wheel while making a pass on the front
straight and rode out a wild ride along the wall to bring out the reds on lap
twenty-two.
Farr led them away on the
restart with Murcott, Stewart, Schatz, McFadden and Meyers the top six at this
point ahead of Muir, Rico, Mann and Johnson. Tatnell, as hard as he was racing,
had only been able to make up a couple of spots back and forth and was in
twelfth.
A light roll on his side by
Paul Morris late in the race set up a nail-biter of a finish and it could have
gone either way for the top three or four. Farr ran the bottom, Schatz went
high, Stewart looked for a way through the middle, top and bottom, McFadden,
Murcott and Meyers waited to see if they could pick up the pieces. Donny gave it
a red-hot go, Stewart did all he could but the race was Farr's to win and he
wasn't to be denied the $10,000 winner's cheque.
$10K in the bank for the Capalaba Wreckers Sprintcar Cup, $20K
on offer in Saturday night's fifty lap Final of the World Series Australian
Sprintcar Open, Farr was good and will enjoy being back in the winner's circle.
Donny has a win and two second place finishes from his three starts at
Archerfield, Stewart has two wins and a third since landing in Australia less
than a week ago.
Friday night is the
Australian Open qualifying races and Preliminary Feature, Saturday has more
Heats, the Dash and last chance races before the fifty lap Finale. Somewhere
near forty drivers from the United States and around Australia will take the
challenge, only one can win.
Event Results:
Visit brisbanespeedway.com.au/results.asp for full results of
all events held at Supercheap Auto Archerfield Speedway. Visit
brisbanespeedway.com.au/results.asp for full results of all events held at
Supercheap Auto Archerfield Speedway. For detailed reports, news and information
on all Sprintcar events in Qld, visit sprintcarsqueensland.com.au
Capalaba Wreckers Sprintcar Cup Podium: (L-R) Donny
Schatz (2nd), Robbie Farr (1st), Shane Stewart (3rd) - (Photo: Ben
Graham)
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