Peter Clare and Josh Hunt took the first day honours as they topped practice for round one of the Workhorse Radical Cup Australia at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The category is fielding its strongest numbers to date with 19 in practice, and possibly the most competitive.

There were three sessions in the lead-up to qualifying and two 50-minute races with compulsory pitstops and the option to affect a driver change. Racing for the expanded Volante Rosso Motorsport team Clare and Hunt were the quickest in both daylight sessions with a best time of 1:29.3133s.

Jordan Oon and Zara Horn from West Australian-based Arise Racing headed the times in the evening session and were less than three tenths off the best time of the day. Karting ace Horn is making her national level debut. Arise team-mate Elliott Schutte is one of many racing solo and was third quickest with his best time coming out of the second session.

Team BRM’s Mark Rosser has two-time Australian Drivers Champion Joey Mawson along and they were fourth fastest ahead of Volante Rosso Alex Gardner. The young 15-year-old kart protégé missed most of the opening session, his Radical parked at Turn 8 when it went into limp mode.

The category has a strong East verse West rivalry with the NSW-based Garth Walden Racing. The first of the GWR entries was sixth placed Peter Paddon who is just in front of his teammate and reigning Cup Australian champions Chris Perini. They were followed by Cooper Cutts from Arise, Aus Nets’ Terry Knowles with Bart Mawer, and tenth overall Zig Fuhrmeister.

The third of the volante Volante Rosso entries with Greg Kenny and Melinda Price were 11th. They were ahead of familiar Radical steerers Brad Russell, Andrew Eldridge, Stephen Champion and Ash Samadi. Then came rookie Simon Arthur, James Hernandez, Sue Hughes and debutant Warwick Churche.

Qualifying and the first 50-minute race will be held on Saturday, and the second race is scheduled for midday on Sunday.