2023 Season 1 Round 3 Thunder Results
O’Shea hits the jackpot in Vegas
Continuing with the Western swing to the start of the season, the Thunder Series took to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Wednesday night. Jason Martin claimed pole position ahead of Barry Neale and Dylan O’Shea in the capacity 40 car field.
Early on, the top 3 pulled away with O’Shea moving into the lead whilst the rest of the field largely fell into a single file train. A solid run of green flag running had drivers moving through the field as the tyre condition dropped off and the cool Nevada air made the corner exits a little slick. The first caution of the night on lap 25 saw everyone head to pit lane to take on 4 tyres and fuel. O’Shea was able to win the race off pit road and maintain his lead ahead of Joshua Carroll-Walden, Martin, Garry Wellman and Jaie Schultz.
Back to green flag racing, and drivers seemed to have more of an idea of what they could expect over a long run and therefore a more aggressive style racing was witnessed throughout the field. Carroll-Walden worked his way to the front, and he and O’Shea started to pull away form the chasing pack led by Martin and Josh Michelmore.
At the following caution on lap 53, we started to see different strategy getting used with Paul Jackson staying out whilst the remainder of the field came in for 4 tyres and enough fuel to hopefully get them home. Jackson looked to be playing the track position game, hoping for more cautions to allow for a fresher set of tyres to be bolted on closer to the end.
From here on, the race would be punctured with regular cautions with drivers stopping at different times trying to be on the freshest tyres at the right time. We headed for an overtime finish with O’Shea leading leading at the green white chequered finish. O’Shea got a great restart and looked to have a big enough gap to hold on.
Martin drove it hard into turn 3 on the final lap and tried to power around the outside. At the line, all eyes went to the timing screens to see who was declared the winner – the margin between them was 0.000s but O’Shea was awarded the win over Martin, with Michelmore rounding out the podium.
Race Summary:
105 Laps
8 Cautions for 32 Laps
4 leaders
9 Lead Changes
1st - #019 Dylan O’Shea
2nd - #21 Jason Martin
3rd - #31 Josh Michelmore
4th - #35 Joshua Carroll-Walden
5th - #02 Darren Mckenzie
Stewards Summary:
Cautions:
Lap 25 - #14 Mark Johansson
Lap 53 - #93 Mirko Dautanac
Lap 58 - #90 Nigel Paton
Lap 69 - #619 Michael Campbell
Lap 79 - #08 Maxie Marshall
Lap 84 - #30 Phil Bissett
Lap 99 - #52 Aiden Schultz
Start Procedure Penalties:
Restart Lap 62 - #080 Koby Jordan – Lane Change
Restart Lap 73 - #83 Matthew Raymond – Lane Change
Restart Lap 73 - #080 Koby Jordan – Lane Change
Restart Lap 83 - #34 Adam Malone – Lane Change
Restart Lap 87 - #34 Adam Malone – Lane Change
Protests:
Nil
Other:
Caution Lap 91 - #80 Noddy Tompkins & #45 Garry Wellman – Netcode/Racing Incident.
**In all future races, if the top car pinches a car down low, contact is made causing a caution and the car on the low line has held their line, the car on the top line will be pinged for causing the incident unless it is blatant net code. Any 50/50 decision in this particular scenario will go against the driver up high. Whilst we all love racing door to door, remember to give each other racing room – Netcode is always a potential to happen.
Thank you to the drivers for an improved performance with the cautions/catching the pace car, etc. Still could be improved when trying to get into correct positions but much better than the first 2 weeks. However, a reminder to check up when accidents are happening in front of you, not just sending it and hoping for the best. If you are unlucky enough to be involved in a wreck, remember hold your brakes so you don’t take out more drivers. As we saw in Vegas, it does take some time for the caution to get thrown so use the voice chat to let others know of wrecks so a half spin doesn’t turn into a massive wreck. This is the trade off if you want to continue to have 40 car fields.
Abusive language:
This is a first and final warning to all drivers. This will not be tolerated in any form, as per the ANZCAR rule book. It might be good for you all to read up what’s actually in this and what is expected of you as an ANZCAR driver. No driver shall use abusive language during an ANZCAR sanctioned event in any form. Think before you speak and/or write anything. Hang off hitting the push to talk button a few seconds before you say something that might give you a holiday from racing.
Michelmore extends his championship lead to 3 points over Martin, with Carroll-Walden and Mckenzie tied for third position just a further 2 points back, with just 14 points covering the top 5 positions. Next week sees the series head to North Carolina and 138 laps at the 1 mile Rockingham Speedway.
Full race results: https://www.simracerhub.com/scoring/season_race.php...
Full driver standings: https://www.simracerhub.com/scoring/season_standings.php...
For full race replay and future Thunder Series broadcasts, please head to Performance E-Streaming on Facebook
Continuing with the Western swing to the start of the season, the Thunder Series took to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Wednesday night. Jason Martin claimed pole position ahead of Barry Neale and Dylan O’Shea in the capacity 40 car field.
Early on, the top 3 pulled away with O’Shea moving into the lead whilst the rest of the field largely fell into a single file train. A solid run of green flag running had drivers moving through the field as the tyre condition dropped off and the cool Nevada air made the corner exits a little slick. The first caution of the night on lap 25 saw everyone head to pit lane to take on 4 tyres and fuel. O’Shea was able to win the race off pit road and maintain his lead ahead of Joshua Carroll-Walden, Martin, Garry Wellman and Jaie Schultz.
Back to green flag racing, and drivers seemed to have more of an idea of what they could expect over a long run and therefore a more aggressive style racing was witnessed throughout the field. Carroll-Walden worked his way to the front, and he and O’Shea started to pull away form the chasing pack led by Martin and Josh Michelmore.
At the following caution on lap 53, we started to see different strategy getting used with Paul Jackson staying out whilst the remainder of the field came in for 4 tyres and enough fuel to hopefully get them home. Jackson looked to be playing the track position game, hoping for more cautions to allow for a fresher set of tyres to be bolted on closer to the end.
From here on, the race would be punctured with regular cautions with drivers stopping at different times trying to be on the freshest tyres at the right time. We headed for an overtime finish with O’Shea leading leading at the green white chequered finish. O’Shea got a great restart and looked to have a big enough gap to hold on.
Martin drove it hard into turn 3 on the final lap and tried to power around the outside. At the line, all eyes went to the timing screens to see who was declared the winner – the margin between them was 0.000s but O’Shea was awarded the win over Martin, with Michelmore rounding out the podium.
Race Summary:
105 Laps
8 Cautions for 32 Laps
4 leaders
9 Lead Changes
1st - #019 Dylan O’Shea
2nd - #21 Jason Martin
3rd - #31 Josh Michelmore
4th - #35 Joshua Carroll-Walden
5th - #02 Darren Mckenzie
Stewards Summary:
Cautions:
Lap 25 - #14 Mark Johansson
Lap 53 - #93 Mirko Dautanac
Lap 58 - #90 Nigel Paton
Lap 69 - #619 Michael Campbell
Lap 79 - #08 Maxie Marshall
Lap 84 - #30 Phil Bissett
Lap 99 - #52 Aiden Schultz
Start Procedure Penalties:
Restart Lap 62 - #080 Koby Jordan – Lane Change
Restart Lap 73 - #83 Matthew Raymond – Lane Change
Restart Lap 73 - #080 Koby Jordan – Lane Change
Restart Lap 83 - #34 Adam Malone – Lane Change
Restart Lap 87 - #34 Adam Malone – Lane Change
Protests:
Nil
Other:
Caution Lap 91 - #80 Noddy Tompkins & #45 Garry Wellman – Netcode/Racing Incident.
**In all future races, if the top car pinches a car down low, contact is made causing a caution and the car on the low line has held their line, the car on the top line will be pinged for causing the incident unless it is blatant net code. Any 50/50 decision in this particular scenario will go against the driver up high. Whilst we all love racing door to door, remember to give each other racing room – Netcode is always a potential to happen.
Thank you to the drivers for an improved performance with the cautions/catching the pace car, etc. Still could be improved when trying to get into correct positions but much better than the first 2 weeks. However, a reminder to check up when accidents are happening in front of you, not just sending it and hoping for the best. If you are unlucky enough to be involved in a wreck, remember hold your brakes so you don’t take out more drivers. As we saw in Vegas, it does take some time for the caution to get thrown so use the voice chat to let others know of wrecks so a half spin doesn’t turn into a massive wreck. This is the trade off if you want to continue to have 40 car fields.
Abusive language:
This is a first and final warning to all drivers. This will not be tolerated in any form, as per the ANZCAR rule book. It might be good for you all to read up what’s actually in this and what is expected of you as an ANZCAR driver. No driver shall use abusive language during an ANZCAR sanctioned event in any form. Think before you speak and/or write anything. Hang off hitting the push to talk button a few seconds before you say something that might give you a holiday from racing.
Michelmore extends his championship lead to 3 points over Martin, with Carroll-Walden and Mckenzie tied for third position just a further 2 points back, with just 14 points covering the top 5 positions. Next week sees the series head to North Carolina and 138 laps at the 1 mile Rockingham Speedway.
Full race results: https://www.simracerhub.com/scoring/season_race.php...
Full driver standings: https://www.simracerhub.com/scoring/season_standings.php...
For full race replay and future Thunder Series broadcasts, please head to Performance E-Streaming on Facebook
