2 Days of Thunder Saturday wrap

It was a big Saturday at the 2 Days of Thunder with over 12 hours of on-track action, concluding with the Btuned Ipswich 3 Hour under lights.

Game Over Australian Endurance Championship

The Btuned Ipswich 3 Hour was an absolute thriller with constant twists and turns throughout the night-time enduro.

They may not have had the best race pace, but with the best strategy Matt McCutcheon and Tony Quinn ended up taking the top spot in there Toyota Supra.

A late race pace car closed the field up; however, McCutcheon did not crack under pressure with faster cars all around him.

In the end he took the win by a smidge over 3s from Rob Gooley and Tony Quinn in the production car spec BMW M4 sponsored by Speedcafe.

A tumble in the Le Mans style start may have dropped John Nikolovski and Fabian Coulthard to the back of the field, however Coulthard marched through the pack to lead by the end of his stint.

Being in the top class forced them to complete an extra stop and meant that they finished in third.

Tom Hayman and Mark Griffith came from multiple laps down to end up in fourth ahead of Ben Gersekowski.

Grant Denyer and Anthony Soole were a late race retirement, they looked set for a podium before mechanical issues forced them into retirement.

TFH Hire TA2 Muscle Car Series

The opening day of the TA2 Muscle Car Series Tag Team Enduro was dominated by Tim Slade and Alice Buckley, all three races were won by the Chevrolet Performance drivers.

Race 1, the solo race for the regulars was controlled by Buckley, she won by 2.7s from Super2 Series driver Ben Gomersall.

Brodie Kostecki rounded out the top three, unable to keep up with the two ahead late on, Tyler Cheney was fourth ahead of Pip Casabene.

Race 2 was a similar story, Tim Slade getting the better of Ryan Wood by 1.9s.

For the second race in a row the Norwell Factory Racing car ended up inside the top three, this time with Nash Morris at the helm. Elliot Barbour and Jarrod Hughes rounded out the top five.

In the 40-minute endurance race Buckley and Slade had to deal with a couple of pace cars but coped with the pressure to make it three from three.

Gomersall and Will Davison were the nearest challengers but did not have the pace to match the Chevy, they were the best Mustang duo.

Again, Kostecki and Morris finished in third from Cheney and Tim Brook, with Joel Heinrich and Max Vidau rounding out the top five.

Australian Innovation Race Cars

It was a really good day of racing in the Australian Innovation Racing Cars, with two, clean, fair and high-quality affairs.

Race 1 of the day was controlled early by Lee Stibbs; however, Geoff Emery kept him honest remaining within 1.5s throughout the opening stint.

During the compulsory pit stop window phase Stibbs lost a couple of seconds, just enough for Emery to perform an overcut and emerge ahead.

Stibbs was keen to reclaim that place but could not force the unflappable Emery to make an error, in fact on the penultimate lap it was he who made a small error mistake. Emery took the win by 1.5s ahead of Stibbs.

Category owner Danny Stutterd ended up over 15s behind the winner in third, Andrew Georgiadis in his first round this season beat Axle Donaldson at the tail of the top five.

Race 2 was a 12-lap sprint race, Stibbs started from pole and was able to keep Emery at bay throughout.

He took the win by 0.7s from Emery, with John Goodacre in third, Georgiadis fourth and Dylan O’Keeffe in the first of the SD class cars.

TFH Hire Legend Cars

The pocket rockets had two races today including the inverted grid race which was truncated by Pace Cars.

Race 3 of the weekend was won by Dean O’Brien; he was able to pull out a very rare margin in Legend Cars allowing him to cruise to victory.

Riley Skinner’s great weekend continued, he was best of the rest in second ahead of reigning Aussie title winner Ruben Dan, Joshua Thomas and Dylan Thomas.

Race 2 of the weekend was an inverted grid race; however it did not change the order up the front of the field.

Skinner stormed through the pack to take the win; he did so by the minuscule margin of 0.075s.

Dan was only 0.25s off the top spot, but came home in third ahead of Robert Hogan and pole sitter Ryan Pring.

Queensland Superkarts

Russell Jamieson was the class of the field in the Superkarts winning both day’s races by over 30 seconds.

Jamieson beat Jason Akermanis by 30s in Race 1, with Gareth Crisp, Timothy Weier and Laurie Fooks rounding out the top five.

In Race 2 it was much the same, the top five ending up in the same order. This time Jamieson won by 39s from Akermanis, Crisp, Weier and Fooks.

Queensland Touring Car Championshp

It was old school touring car racing in the local Queensland Touring Car Championship, with heavy powerful Holden Commodores and lightweight nimble BMWs doing battle.

Murray Reilly won both of the races, but both were far from easy, he won Race 1 by a margin of just 1s ahead of BMW steerer Nathan Marks.

Trent Rub was a distant third 10s behind the two up front, he beat home Terry Skene by a margin of 0.4s, with Matt Corney fifth.

The start of Race 2 saw the heaviest rainfall of the day, the only time the rain made a difference on the track.

It meant that Marks was able to more than take the fight to Reilly, the duo switched the top spot lap after lap, almost corner after corner.

In the end Reilly held on by a margin of just 0.8s, Marks threw everything at it late on, but the track became too dry for him to attack. Again, Rub came home third, along way clear of Corney and Jayden Manteufel.

The on track action starts at 8.20am tomorrow, with the livestream commencing at 9.00am. The TV coverage on SBS, Fox Sports and Kayo will be shown from 1pm AEST.