Winners: Linken Paterson, Jayden Bryant and Carter Metcalfe on the podium.
Linken Paterson took victory in two of four junior sedan feature events on Saturday night at Alexandra Raceway, winning the top star junior sedan final and the junior standard saloon final.
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Jake Bradley from Geelong won the new stars and Riley Taylor took victory in the yunior 1200cc sedans.
Other winners included Victorian champion Lee Beach in the sports sedans and Matt Leek in the standard saloons.
Alexandra Raceway is the home of junior sedan racing and this year with the Victorian and Australian titles coming up in the Speedway Sedans Australia Juniors class, a huge field was keen to get some laps in for this Junior Sedan Promotional Association point score night.
The top star field had nine heat races, a last-chance qualifier and then the feature race, such was the size of the entry numbers.
Qualifying wins went the way of Bree Simpson from Woori Yallock, Jayden Bryant, Jack Murphy from NSW, Seth Sloane — by just 0.127 — of a second, Dylan Barrow, River Paterson, James Oliver and the only driver to win two of the nine qualifiers, Linken Paterson.
Despite a decent number of visiting drivers to the track, Alexandra members won eight of the nine qualifiers.
In the last-chance qualifier, Cameron Smith from Mildura, River Spitzbarth, Maddy Capon and Nathan Miles finished in qualifying spots for the feature race.
Under the green flag, Linken Paterson took the race lead quickly from Bryant, Oliver, Barrow and Simpson. Oliver was the first of the fancied potential winners to pull out of the race on lap six with mechanical issues or damage, while Paterson continued to lead Bryant, Barrow, Simpson and Carter Metcalfe.
Metcalfe moved forward over the next seven laps and with a couple to go had settled into the top three. Paterson greeted the chequered flag to take the win from Bryant, Metcalfe, Barrow and Simpson.
Happy days: Riley Taylor.
Billy McBride, Jake Bradley and Will Fallon shared qualifying wins in the new stars before the finale.
Fallon was the early leader fresh off winning the previous new star final at Alexandra Speedway in December. Bradley is currently the number one driver in the development division of the junior sedans and on the back of a win in the Piston Cup at Redline recently, he assumed control of the lead. Bradley went on to win from Fallon, Jasmine Bryant, Zammy Noseda and Braiden Webster.
Victorian Speedway Council 1200cc Sedan racing competed across three heat races with Riley Taylor, Fallon — who was competing in two classes on race night — and Arthur Hutchinson winning the heats.
Taylor started in pole position in the final. Having gained confidence through the season as he stuck with Hutchinson in other events, Taylor went on to win the final, his first victory in a feature, from Fallon, Jack Kershaw, Bryce Leek and Ella Sheedy.
Rounding out the junior sedan action was the junior standard saloons. Victorian champion Damon Ingram was visiting from Warragul along with a host of drivers from Gippsland to turn laps on the fast Alexandra Speedway, the venue of their upcoming Victorian title. Ingram won the first heat race before Linken Paterson, driving Wayne Sheerman’s race car, took a win in the next. Zac Barwise won the third qualifier, with Ingram again a winner in the fourth. Paterson won the fifth and Harry Cecil claimed the sixth, with results placing Paterson, Ingram, Cecil and Barwise in the top four starting spots for the final.
After five laps, Paterson was leading Cecil, Ingram, Dylan Barrow and Barwise. Five laps later, positions remained the same before Ingram on lap 11 moved to second and Cecil dropped to fourth. The chequered flag dropped and a steward’s penalty to Ingram changed the results slightly. Paterson took the win from Barrow, who was elevated to second and Cecil to third, while Ingram dropped to fourth place in front of Rhys Meakins.
In sports sedan results, Lee Beach, Josh Service and Steve Kershaw won heat races before Beach finished with the feature race win from Kershaw, Brendan Miller, Service and Dillon Taylor.
In the standard saloons, Daniel Stewart won two of the three heat races with Matt Leek taking a win in the third. In the final, Stewart led the first seven laps before Leek made a move to the lead, going on to win by more than a second from Stewart, Brodie Ardley, Matt Davis and Courtney Meakins.
Alexandra Speedway is next in action on March 19 with the visiting Wingless Sprints, the Sports Sedan Power Series and club classes.
