Lady Formula 500 racer Kate Searle headed to Geelong’s Avalon Raceway on Saturday night (Jan 12) with a new aggressive attitude that she took on board in the recent Oval Express Series. The improvement from Searle was noticeable, but unfortunately a good night ended badly.

In all three qualifying heat races for the second round of the Victorian domestic Stampede Series, Searle started from position seven and moved forward in all encounters to record two fourths and a fifth place.

“I learnt a lot of things in the Oval Express Series, one being that I had to be stronger off the starts. I did this on Saturday night and managed to move forward.“I put in a real conscious effort to be more aggressive and not as kind on the racetrack. It certainly worked,” Searle said.

Searle started the final from fourth position and quickly found herself in third until she spun in turn four. With the rest of the field hammering past, Searle suffered front-end and starter motor damage and had to watch the remainder of the race from the infield and cheer on fellow lady lacer Jess Moulden who took victory. “It was a disappointing way to end the night, but I think the positives outweighed the negatives. I felt good within myself and the car felt the best it has for a while,” Kate said.

This Saturday night (Jan 19), the ABC Realestate Formula 500 team will head to Laang Speedway for the Victorian Championship.

“I’m really looking forward to the state title, we have fixed up the damage from Avalon and we are set. Our last meeting at Laang was in the Oval Express Series and we started fourth in the B-Main and missed the transfer position by one position. “Against the field in the Oval Express Series, that wasn’t a bad result, considering we are racing against some of the best drivers in the world,” Searle added.

While Searle will do battle on the Laang bullring, ABC Realestate Sprintcar driver Simon Amato will head to Geelong’s Avalon Raceway for the Fireball Derby. Amato had major motor issues at Warrnambool’s Sungold Stadium on New Years Day and the issue still remains a mystery while the motor has had some fine-tuning at Maxwill Motors in Adelaide this week.

“We have rebuilt the motor trying to find the problem, but it still remains a mystery. The motor has been in Adelaide this week; Rob from our crew took it to Maxwill and it’s been on the dyno in readiness for the next couple of weeks,” Amato said. It will be a big fortnight for the Amato team, with this Saturday night’s event being followed by the President’s Cup at Avalon on Wednesday night before the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic on the Australia Day Long Weekend at Sungold Stadium.

The team then plan to contest the Australian Championship the following weekend at Sydney’s Parramatta City Raceway. The ABC Realestate Racing team would also like to send their best wishes to Sprintcar driver Mark Grosvenor who is recovering from a crash suffered on January 2 at Bacchus Marsh. 
 
ABC Realestate Racing would like to thank the following sponsors for their support throughout season 2007-2008: ABC Realestate, Power Loan, Summa Auto Parts, Mainline DynoLog Dynamometers, Leading Car Care Centre, Dyno-Mite Performance, Red Ed’s Sheds, Gantek and VACC.

Release by Jarryd Stokes