Alex Kenny, driving his Regulator Automation/Sydney Composites Juno CN2015 in Round 2 of the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship at Sydney motorsport Park on Saturday April 9, took out pole position by an unbelievable and unheard of 4.34 seconds in extreme wet conditions, then masterfully won Race 1 with a 5.2 second margin, and then won Race 2 with an an even more unbelievable 19.6 second margin.
In the final Trophy Race 3, Alex was steering his rocketship Juno to another astronomical win, when on Lap 3 an electrical problem struck instantly, and tragically, left him with all lights out and rolling helplessly back into pit lane as he watched Peter White, in his First Neon/GWR Radical SR8, and Mark Brame and his Focus Motorsport Radical SR3, steal his race win as they passed him on the main straight.
The normally outgoing Alex was left barely speechless as he and his team packed up his incredible Juno, and drove back to their Sydney base before Race 3 had even been completed.
It doesn’t get much tougher than that in motorsport!
The unpredictable rain showers that crossed over Sydney throughout Round 2 of the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship was a repeat of Round 1 at Wakefield Park in late February.
As a result, the twenty three Supersports competitors, which was slightly down on the expected number due to Grand Prix duties, their engineers struggling to achieve a stable tyre and chassis set up.
Peter White and Mark Brame showed their class by keeping everything together throughout all three races, Peter crossing the Race 3 Finish line by a slim 1.6 seconds ahead of Brame who had been closing in on Peter as the laps, and the ambient light, faded away, all the Supersports needing Le Mans levels of lighting to determine the racing line on the
Steve Roberts in his Austwide/GWR Radical SR8 could only watch Peter and Mark in the distance as they raced and slid and slipped their way to the Finish in Race 3, Steve keeping all the others Supersports drivers behind him as they all raced at eleven tenths right up to the Finish line.
Jonathon Canavan (Radical SR3), Steven Shiels (GWR Radical SR3), Victorian Zig Fuhrmeister (Radical SR3), and championship leader (before Round 2) Darren Barlow in his GWR prepared Stohr WF1, were separated by fractions of a second from each other at the end of Race 3, with Jonathon and Steve and Zig keeping it all together throughout the race with their stable Radicals, while Darren endured two spins with his stiffly set up Stohr.
Former Sports Sedan winner, Simon Copping, took another step up in competitiveness by moving into the top ten with his West WX10, the gear selection issues he experienced in Round 1 now seemingly remedied.
Craig McLatchey (Radical SR3) and Stephen Champion (Champion’s Business Growth Advisers/GWR Radical SR3) and Paul Royal (Radical SR3) crossed the Finish line three seconds apart after enduring the spray and dimming light, and with Stephen enduring a spin during the race.
Paul Palmer held a top ten position in his Stohr WF2 as the light faded, when on the third last lap, His engine started misfiring, bringing his race to end end prematurely.
Warwick Morris (Radical SR3) and Sue Hughes (GWR Radical SR3) also kept their Supesports on the racing surface throughout Race 3, although their positions at the end of the race were not representative of the speed and intensity that they, and every other Supersports competitor, demonstrated lap after lap though the sweeping left-right corners of the Sydney Motorsport Park Gardner Grand Prix circuit.
The “Wolf Pack” of South Australians Mark Lauke and John Paul Drake with their JAM Motorsport prepared Wolfs, had already achieved their data gathering goals which included valuable wet track data, and so only John Paul Drake ventured on to the Sydney Motorsport Park circuit for Race 3, John Paul returning to his pit garage early in Race 3 after a final run.
Ryan Godfrey’s Ready Set Reline Plumbing Wolf Tornado S barely reached its massive speed potential throughout all Races at Round 2 of the Industrie Clothing new South Wales Supersports Championship, enduring serious tyre issues revolving around unavailability of fresh tyres, Ryan then being forced to race on grooved slick tyres in Races 1 and 2, which when combined with 300 horsepower of turbocharged power,
The twenty three Supersports drivers raced over 20 minutes of Qualifying and twenty six laps of the 4.1 kilometre long Sydney Motorsport Park Gardner grand Prix circuit throughout all three races of Round 2 of the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship, and all being in extreme wet and damp conditions, being the fastest of all categories, and all with only two laps of yellow flags as drivers recovered from spins. No Safety Cars and no Red Flags!
Round 3 of the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship back at Sydney Motorsport Park under lights on Saturday June 25.
The largest field of Supersports racing cars at Round 3 is expected to shatter the previous largest field, and the doors to every Supersports team garage will be thrown open to allow anyone to get a close up look at the Le Mans style Supersports prototype racing cars, and to find how challenging they to race at speeds faster than a V8 Supercar.
Photo – Alex Kenny dominated Round 2 of the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship, until Lap 3 of Race 3
For more information on the 2022 Industrie Clothing New South Wales Supersports Championship, contact Darren Barlow on 0439044128, visit Facebook Supersports Racing New South Wales Australia, or visit https://www.supersportsracing.com.au/
