Ford and Chevrolet have split the wins in the two opening races of the Wanneroo Raceway Supercars round, near Perth in Western Australia.
Ryan Wood took his maiden Supercars victory in his Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford Mustang before Broc Feeney struck back for Triple Eight to win the second race in his Chevrolet Camaro.
Much of Saturday looked like it belonged to Wood. He took the lead in the opening race from WAU team-mate (and polesitter) Chaz Mostert after 10 laps and resisted the pressure from both of Triple Eight’s drivers, first Feeney, who undercut him in the pits, and then Will Brown, whose four-tyre pitstop gave him an advantage over Wood, who took just two at his mandatory pitstop.
But the 21-year-old New Zealander kept his cool and sped home to his maiden Supercars win, from Brown and Mostert.
The second race was looking like going the same way. Wood was beaten away from pole position by a fast-starting Cam Waters (Tickford Racing Ford) and Matt Payne (Grove Racing Ford) but Wood picked them off and built a gap, only to have the left-rear suspension break as he braked for Turn 6.
In his absence Feeney and Brown, who started from eighth on the grid, undercut the leaders to take control of the 50-lap race from Mostert, who charged through the top 10 nicely from 11th on the grid. Waters took fourth ahead of Payne, who literally pushed him hard over the closing laps, and Tickford’s Thomas Randle.
“I thought it might be pretty hard to win that one,” said Feeney after his 1.576s win. “Woody ran off, I feel like we are all almost doing that on every lap.
“The pitstop strategy was awesome. It was really fun to be pushing hard at the end of the race.”
Officials may have a busy evening, to investigate Wood’s suspension failure, after a similar issue struck the Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet of Cooper Murray late in the second race. All the cars were racing on the Dunlop Super Soft control tyre for the first time at the usually abrasive 2.41km circuit.
One condition that many of the drivers pointed to was that the Super Soft tyre left a huge amount of buildup on the track compared to the Soft, turning much of the circuit into a single-line track.
As a result of his fourth race win of the season, Feeney has extended his points lead over Brown. He now sits on 1036 points, with Brown on 1009 and Payne on 929. Waters is fourth on 919 ahead of Mostert (785) and Brodie Kostecki (702).
Supercars will return to the track on Sunday, with a qualifying session set for 11:00am, Perth time. The Top Ten Shoot Out is due to start at 1:05pm before the main race, over a lengthy 83 laps and on the Soft tyre, at 3:15pm.
