After a huge week of racing at the Speedway Wangaratta, Trevor Mills managed to wind back the clock once again and close out as the SSA Production Sedan Victorian Champion!
Nearly forty cars would return to the track for the fifth night of racing in just over a week, with Mills doing enough to qualify on pole position for the thirty five lap feature alongside Brendan Miller, but choosing to start on the outside.
He made the most of the outside and although Miller used the lowside to initially take the lead, Mills was able to scoot back him, with Richard Cook also following him through into second.
Local hero Felicity Roycroft was able to race her way into third, with two distinct battles forming on track, Mills and Cook for the lead and Roycroft and Miller for third.
A multi car pileup in turn four bought on the yellows with three complete, thinning the field for the restart.
Mills led away again, with Cook using the lowline to draw alongside him a number of times, but unable to make any ground. Further back Matt Vicary was applying the pressure on Mitch Watts for fifth while the top four cruised around with the order unchanged.
With nine complete Miller used lapped traffic to his advantage to get past Roycroft for third, while Vicary was also able to get past Watts for fifth.
By this time the lead duo had pulled clear of the rest of the field, Cook trying lap after lap to get under Mills with no success.
A midrace stoppage bought them back to the field but did little to change the order, though Vicary applied the pressure to Roycroft and eventually for by Roycroft with nineteen remaining.
Cook was still applying the blowtorch to Mills, alongside him a number of times at the line but unable to make a move in what was quite simply a thrilling battle.
As the laps wound down the lead duo were still well clear, while Vicary was able to chase down and pass Miller for third with nine laps remaining.
With five laps to go Mills went high to get around a lapped car and this gave Cook the momentum, catching and getting by Mills on lap thirty-one. Mills stuck right with Cook, and with two to go dove underneath him, the two making door to door contact across the line.
As the white flag flew Mills was able to use a lapped car to his advantage this time, and put the car in front and despite a last corner lunge from Cook, was able to hang on for the win by just 0.250 seconds.
The duo made contact after the line and got stuck together up against the turn one wall, but the result wouldn’t change, Mills taking the win from Cook while Vicary claimed the final spot on the podium. Miller and Roycroft would round out the top five.
With the victory, Mills is now a four-time Victorian Champion, with his first victory back in 2009/10 and most recent in 2017/18.
Congratulations once again not just to all competitors over the last two weekends, but also to the whole team at Wangaratta Speedway for putting on five nights of awesome racing!
Feature, 35 laps: 1. V52 Trevor Mills, 2. Q15 Richard Cook, 3. N75 Matt Vicary, 4. VA18 Brendan Miller, 5. V65 Felicity Roycroft, 6. N54 Mitch Watts, 7. V84 Nathan Shortis, 8. V34 Brayden Creek, 9. V18 Shane Hammond, 10. V40 Matthew Ismail, 11. V69 Tom Barnard (34), 12. V33 Brad Colquhoun (34), 13. W26 Gemma Laidlaw (32). DNF: V11 Nathan O’Brien (30), V10 Michael Sayers (23), V27 Rhys Collins (13), N45 Jared Stephenson (13), V61 Brad Warren (4), N21 Andrew Cunningham (3), N27 Wayne Bourke (3), V7 Marcus Maclean (3), N5 Scott Hawkins (3). DNS: V39 Mark Purdie. Total Time: No Time. Winning Margin: 0.250. Fastest Lap: 18.932 Q15 Richard Cook.
