In what was the first round of the Wild West Showdown and the Late Models first time competing at Bunbury Speedway in a number of years, it was Jamie Oldfield (Oldfield Racing) who raced away to win the inaugural Allan Blake Classic last night!
It was a triumphant return to Bunbury for Oldfield, and indeed the Late Model division, with twenty-two drivers rolling into the venue.
Unfortunately, it was over early for Kalgoorlie’s David Boyes (Boyes Motorsport) after he snapped a pinion shaft in the diff as hot laps began, while Rod Musarra (@Teamrocket) and Cody Dolmans would also be unable to start the feature after mechanical gremlins and a crash respectively ended their nights in the heat races.
Indeed, the heat race wins were shared by Kye Blight (Kye Blight Racing), Warren Oldfield (Oldfield Racing), Jamie Oldfield and Jay Cardy (Cardy Racing Components), with Jamie doing enough to qualify into pole position for the thirty-lap feature alongside Kye Blight.
Jamie grabbed the lead as the race went green with Blight moving into second and Warren into third.
Brad Smith (Brad Smith Devil Motorsports 6T) would be next best followed by David Nylander (Nylander Motorsport) and Brad Blake who fought for position until they made contact as they were completing lap three, Blake spearing infield and Nylander lucky not to spin, bringing out the yellows.
Nylander was unable to rejoin the field, while Blake was given his position back in the restart and it was Jamie who led away while Warren went around the outside of Blight for second, Blake doing the same to be third as the third lap was completed.
Jamie and Warren began to pull away as Blake and Blight remained side by side, fighting for position for the next few laps, Blake with the advantage until lap eight when Blight was able to get back by on the outside.
With ten laps complete Jamie was ahead by just under four seconds, with another two seconds back from Warren to Blight who had in turn opened up a small gap on Blake.
Lapped traffic came into play on lap ten, then on lap eleven Damian Hudson (Hudson Racing Team) spun, with Freddy Kinsella (Team Green Racing) left with nowhere to go, the duo jammed together and requiring separation.
The race would finally resume and again Jamie moved away with Warren maintaining second, but this time it was visiting Tasmanian driver Brad Smith making the moves, diving through on the inside to steal third place.
Shortly after, the yellow lights were on once again with fourteen complete as another visiting driver in South Aussie Mat Crimmins (Crimmins Racing) spun on turn four and retired infield.
Jamie led Warren and Smith away again and the laps wound down with little changing: by the time twenty laps were complete the biggest battle was for eighth between Paul Stubber (Bar31) and Joe Chalmers (Team BCM Motorsport:).
Lapped traffic with five to go didn’t slow Jamie down much, though it did allow Warren to close the gap slightly, until it suddenly became heavy lapped traffic with three to go, allowing Warren to close on Jamies tail and even show the nose.
Warren went low and Jamie high going into turn three as they came to greet the white flag, but Greg Horan and Hudson had a coming together, seeing Hudson facing the wrong way and both Oldfield’s lucky to avoid the incident.
The yellows were on again and it would set up a green, white, chequer, restart, Jamie utilising the clean air to race away and claim the win from Warren Oldfield and Brad Smith.
A big thankyou to Bunbury for hosting the Allan Blake Classic, doubling as the opening night of the Wild West Showdown, while we would also like to extend a huge thankyou to Heatleys Safety & Industrial who supplied all of todays competing drivers with workshop consumables!
Late Models will be back in action again tonight at the Perth Motorplex, so with only a short turnaround between events, it’ll certainly make the racing very interesting indeed for Round Two of the Wild West Showdown, doubling as Round Eight of the Pro Dirt Series!