A hectic two days of racing

Ian and Hugh McAlister, Mark Crutcher and John Hobson encountered a number of dilemmas at Wakefield Park.

Saturday’s qualifier saw father-son duo Ian and Hugh qualify fourth and fifth respectively in the Stock Cars Australia Series. Only one thousandth of a second separated the pair.

Come race one Ian and Hugh were again hard to separate in placing fourth and fifth. Ian continued to have the upper hand in race two with a third and fourth result, while in race three they placed second and seventh.

Ian held on for second place in the final and Hugh edged his way into sixth for the pair to place second and fourth overall. Winner went to Chad Cotton in a TA2 Mustang. 

“It was a really good race, I was dicing with him the whole time,” Ian said.

“I could have beaten him but we had a red flag with two laps to go.

“I would’ve liked to have gotten the big trophy but we were cut short.” 

Hugh was also pleased with a fourth placing, although disappointed with the final race.

“He got bumped at the start and pushed back and found it very hard to recover,” Ian said.

“He ran some good times – did a 1052 in the final.”

Meanwhile in the Nissan Pulsar Series Mark and John’s weekend wasn’t going to plan.

An engine issue in qualifying saw Mark resort back to his old car, and in turn John was lent another car to race by the race day organiser.

On Saturday the pair qualified 17^th and 18^th, and come race one Mark was determined to improve his position. After getting a good start and making up six spaces, Mark was penalised two minutes for speeding out of pit lane. This enabled John to get within 24 seconds of him to finish 15^th and 16^th. 

The duo bettered their qualifying times on Sunday to land 14^th and 15^th but their problematic weekend continued as Mark suffered clutch problems after 25 laps to place 16^th.

It almost seemed the bad luck was contagious as John’s car caught fire on lap 32 after breaking an oil line, forcing him to retire.

“All in all it was a pretty hectic weekend for the crew from Young,” Ian said.

“The rumour is Stumpy’s gone into retirement and is becoming crew chief.”