FOR the third year running Paul Dumbrell has taken out the 250 kilometre Dunlop Series race at Mount Panorama, the Eggleston Motorsport driver winning by more than 11 seconds.
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Prior to Saturday’s enduro, the only race of the Bathurst round, Dumbrell boasted just one win in the development category for 2016.
That came at the season opening Clipsal round.
But the defending champion showed his class at Mount Panorama as he jumped from fifth in the series into third.
“Any race around here, no matter what class it is, is great to win and it is great to do that against some awesome competition in an older car,” Dumbrell, who also raced in the Bathurst 1000 as Jamie Whincup’s co-driver, said.
Dumbrell got the best of the start from position two on the grid and led the way up Mountain Straight for the first time ahead of Shae Davies, while pole sitter Garry Jacobson slipped to third.
While Dumbrell set about gapping his rivals, Davies, Jacobson and Jack Le Brocq staged a good battle for second and third behind him.
James Golding, who arrived at Bathurst sitting third in the championship, had his race come to an end after just 14 minutes.
He sustained damage to the front right of his Holden Commodore VF after hitting the wall at Sulman Park.
But Golding’s incident was only minor compared to one involving 17-year-old Paul Morris Motorsports driver Jack Smith on lap 10.
He slammed his Falcon FG into the concrete at The Esses and bounced back across the track to hit the right hand wall at the entrance to The Dipper.
Smith’s crash saw the race yellow flagged, so Dumbrell, Jacobson and Davies all took the chance to pit.
Le Brocq opted to stay out and he assumed the race lead. As the safety car pulled off after lap 15, Dumbrell was in seventh.
On lap 23 Dumbrell was back in the lead as Le Brocq ducked into the pits. Le Brocq, who clocked the fastest lap of the race (2:08.3675), went on place seventh.
Dumbrell led by 6.5 seconds when made his second stop after lap 27. He emerged in fourth and began his final charge.
With four laps to go Dumbrell was back in front, holding a 9.04 seconds advantage over Anton de Pasquale.
But Jacobson, who had made his second pit stop on lap 17, got by de Pasquale on his penultimate lap.
There was no catching Dumbrell, who won by 11.3118 seconds to move from fifth to third in the championship.
Jacobson retained his overall series lead by placing second with de Pasquale rounding out the podium in third.