The 2020 Motorsport Australia Victorian State Circuit Championships begun on a high with more than 250 cars putting on a brilliant show at Sandown Raceway across 48 entertaining races.
While the regular state categories were impressive throughout the weekend, the Motorsport Australia GT Trophy Series held its first of two rounds at state level as Matt Stoupas claimed maximum points across the category’s two races.
Stoupas’ strong start to the 2020 season came at the expense of Wayne Mack and team-mate Gary Higgon as the trio finished first to third in every race.
While the 2018 Motorsport Australia GT Trophy Series runner-up finished race one in second place behind Ben Schoots, a thrilled Stoupas still took out top honours for all the registered competitors.
“I was out to win, no question,” Stoupas said.
“Race one caught me out because I hadn’t started the car in the rain in probably three years and I got caught off the standing start, dropping back to sixth.
“I was quickly back to second behind Ben Schoots, but I had pace on him, I just couldn’t get through safely in the six-laps allotted for that first race, but I gave it everything I had.
“That second race I was taking it pretty easy to be honest. I had a safe margin to Wayne, the only drama was that late Safety Car which grouped the field with just one flyer left, but there was no way I was letting Schoots through, I wanted that win pretty badly.”
Outside the Trophy Series, the Hyundai excel series once again had the most competitors with 44 drivers taking part in the season opener. Two race wins for Timothy Rowse was enough to take out the round over Jason Bargwanna and Marcus Fraser.
In Saloon Cars, Shawn Jamieson comfortably took out all three races over Travis Lindorff and Anthony Beare with Lindorff’s final race second putting him above Beare on the podium.
As Vincenzo Gucciardo was winning every race in the MGs & Invited British Sports Cars, Rhys Howell and Keith Ondarchie managed to secure the remaining podium places after a four-way battle with Jason Holmes and Robin Bailey.
It was a similar story in Formula Vees as Reef McCarthy’s clean sweep over the 18 drivers opened up the battle for second and third between Heath Collinson, Adam Slattery and Davin Field – the latter just missing out.
Reigning Porsche 944 Challenge series winner Cameron Beller got his title defence off to a solid start with three dominant wins over the rest of the field as Adam Brewe’s race three result saw him pip 2019 runner-up Tony Westaway for second outright.
The final clean sweeps for the round came in Formula Ford as Brendan Jones and Benjamin Bargwanna both dominated their respective classes – Jones beating Dean Koutsoumidis and Adrian Wilkinson in 1600s, while Bargwanna beat Jordyn Sinni and Timothy Edwards in the outright class.
It was a much closer affair in the HQ Holdens, with Rod Raatjes’ race one win not enough for him to win the round over Andrew Magilton who finished ahead of him in the final two races.
Both Improved Productions round winner Damien Milano and Dean Camm in the Sports Sedans had to fight hard for their honours as their respective battles for top spot against Troy Lloyd and David Wright went down to the final race.
The next round of the Motorsport Australia Victorian State Circuit Championships will be at Winton on 28-29 March.
