OzRacingWrap

Despite suffering technical issues, Klark Quinn driving his V.I.P Petfoods Mosler MT900 GT3 has taken victory in race one of the Vodka O Australian GT Championship at the Sucrogen Townsville 400 today.

Quinn’s paddle shift failed after five laps leaving the current Championship leader to change gears manually which he said whilst still effective made the car slower.

“I’m not complaining much because I was still able to win the race, but the car just doesn’t like the manual shift mode so I almost had to nurse it to the line,” he said.

“I was nervous over the last few laps because I could see the Mercedes closing in pretty quickly, but the car held together thankfully.”

Peter Hackett’s Erebus Racing Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 was able to finish the race in second place made all the easier by a drive through penalty served to Kevin Weeks for a start line infringement.

Weeks started the race out of formation at the start and said he was frustrated by his own error.

“The Supalock Lamborghini has been really quick this weekend, and I know each car has to be nose to tail at the start, but I was a fair way to the right of the guy in front and paid the price,” he said.

“I was eventually able to finish in sixth, so all was not lost and we’ll give it a good go tomorrow.”

Third place in race one was taken by Greg Crick in his distinctive JEEP liveried Dodge Viper after a race long duel with Tony Quinn in the V.I.P Petfoods Aston Martin DBSR.

“Quinny and I were battling hard throughout the race and I could see his car getting more and more unstable under brakes” he said.

“I was about to try and make a move but he locked up and spun coming into turn 11.”

“I was quite happy not to push anymore as the Viper is continuing to suffer engine temp issues and I didn’t want to blow the engine.”

Mark Eddy’s Audi R8 LMS finished fourth after a coming together with Kevin Weeks Lamborghini early in the race, despite the Audi coming off second best with a loss of power steering and a bent exhaust which Eddy said cut the power down in the car.

“Bending the exhaust was just like choking the engine, so I spent the race just trying to keep in touch with the front runners to get some points,” he said.

GT Challenge Class competitor and veteran Peter Boylan came home in first place, despite a 25 second penalty after an early race accident with Poulton.

“I accidentally hit Tim Poulton’s Lotus and was sorry to see him stop,” he said.

“My Porsche is great to drive around this place and I can’t wait to get back out there tomorrow.”

Plenty of action was seen across the field in the 30 minute race with plenty of spins and near misses.

The Lotus of Angelo Lazaris was damaged after an incident with Dean Grants Vodka O Porsche and will not start tomorrow, and the incident between Boylan and Poulton has rendered Poulton’s Lotus too damaged to fix.

Race two for the Vodka O GT Championship will start at 10.35 tomorrow morning with 11 cars due to make the grid.