O'Brien Aluminium Series

[jd yort]

[jd yort]

Round 2

Des Wall once again had the Supra on pole for Round2 of the 1996 series with a blistering 41sec lap time. 2nd was Bob Jolly who had come up from Victoria in the VR Commodore and 3rd was Danny Osbourne down from Qld again the Colourscan Rx7.
4th was Barry Morcom in the newly aquired ex Jamieson Falcon XR8 now in white Plasterboard sponsorship. 5th was Peter O'Brien in the ex Tindal / Wall VL Commodore. 6th was Ivan Mikac in the RX7, 7th was Chris Clearihan in the ex Edmonson Alfetta, 8th John Gerwald in the ex Pate Commodore.
Sitting just outside the top 10 in 11th was Graham Smith in the Fiat. There were over 30 entries for the meeting. The Ron O'Brien Sierra had suffered issues in practice and was replaced by the RX3.
There were a number of the S4 Rx7's entered in this meeting: Barrett, Mikac, Reithmuller was having the second run in his new car and Osbourne was present in the Colourscan Rx7.


Race 1
In the first 5 lapper of the day, Des won setting a new lap record of 42.17. He lead home Bob Jolly comfortably with Danny Osbourne in 3rd. The next positions were Morcom, Clearihan, O'Brien, Mikac, Gerwald, Graham Smith, Axisa, Wilderidge in the Capri and McGinness in the Rx7.

Race2
Des got the jump and lead into turn from Jolly.In the mid pack the Fiat 131 of Smith was touched from behind and went around. After the dust had settled Wilderidge, Mark Smith in the Gemini, Rod Brown in the EH and Steve Litchenberger were all casualtiyes causing a red flag.
Graham Smith and Wilderidge were unable to make the restart.
Once again Des lead into turn 1 and by the end of the first lap he had a 1 sec lead over Jolly. Morcom took O'Brien and Clearihan to move into 4th before a few turns later O'Brien spun the Commodore at Momo. He was able to rejoin but a long way down.
Morcom took Osbourne to then move to 3rd. Jolly reeled Des in by the later half of the race but was unable to get past as traffic came into play so Wall took the win from Jolly and Morcom.

Race3
Glen Robinson was on pole followed by Iain Corness, stephen litchenberger, David Krause in the EH, Kevin Clark in the mustang and Graeme Morahan.
Krause jumped the start and it was Litchenberger who lead out of turn 1 followed by O'Brien in the Commodore who had started further up the grid due to his spin in race2 and Steve Briffa in the VL Commodore. Mikac was up to 4th by the end of the first lap.
O'Brien grabbed the lead by turn 2 on lap 2 while Des slowly picked through the field. By halfway he was into 3rd behind Mikac and O'Brien. Despite the reverse grid, Des had hit the front by lap 7 and lead home Peter O'Brien and Ivan Mikac.

Here is the complete Youtube footage for the Round:


(Despite it saying Race 3 at the start, it is race 1. They also say that the Osbourne Rx7 is English, it is not).

After round 2 Des was comfotably leading the championship with 110 points followed by Graham Smith on 54 and Ivan in 3rd with 46 points.

[daveofalltrades]

This series to me reminds me of very happy times of my childhood. The variety of cars and close racing was incredible. I loved it when the series would come to lakeside and look back on it with lots of love