The Phillip Island Auto Racing Club’s Island Magic has enjoyed a successful year once again as more than 200 entries put on a show over two days of non-stop action. 
 
Headlining the race meeting was the 33-car National Sports Sedans' 50k Plate Trophy, which also served as the second round of the Series’ 2021 season. 
 
Taking out the major prize for the round was 2018 champion Steve Tamasi, who experienced a mixed lead up into the weekend’s main event.  
 
In race one, Tamasi had a spectacular off where he spun out at 285km/h and retire from the race. Fortunately Tamasi sustained no terminal damage, keeping him in contention for the rest of the weekend.
 
The Victorian then bounced back nicely in the second race with a personal best run where he started from the back of the grid, passed 22 cars and finished in second place behind future Repco Supercars Championship driver, Thomas Randle.  


While Randle was unable to finish the main 50k plate race on Sunday afternoon due to tyre issues, Tamasi capitalised and stormed home to a dominant 29 second win over Jordan Caruso. 
 
Despite the memorable trophy race win, the DNF on Saturday saw Tamasi lose his lead in the National Sports Sedan Series outright standings to Michael Robinson, with just one point separating the two drivers ahead of the season finale at The Bend Motorsport Park. 
 
“I’m absolutely stoked with the victory because the 50k plate is something I look forward to every year,” Tamasi said. 
 
“It’s the best-looking trophy and it looks good in the trophy cabinet already. 
 
“For me, it’s really special to win events like this because it’s my home round and I have done many laps at Phillip Island. Plus I just felt I improved so much over the weekend. 
 

“Unfortunately, Michael is leading the championship due to that DNF, but we’re extremely fortunate that the only thing we needed to do after the race one incident was to clean the car up. 
 
“It was an awesome weekend and we made lots of progress – even cracking our PB lap time by one and half seconds.” 

Outside of the Sports Sedans, there was plenty of action for the fans to enjoy as five drivers dominated their respective categories. 
 
At the top of the list was Hyundai Excel Challenge winner Jarred Farrell, as he enjoyed a clean sweep of victories against the weekend’s largest field of 39 drivers.  
 
Farrel wasn’t the only driver to secure a perfect weekend before attending December’s Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships finale at The Bend Motorsport Park, with James Westaway winning all three Porsche 944 Challenge races. 
 
The other drivers to go three-from-three over the weekend were Adam Poole in the Improved Production Cars, Michael Miceli in the Historic Touring Cars, Thomas Sargent in Formula Ford and Simon Tabinor in the Saloon Cars. 


It wasn’t all one-way traffic though as there were some categories that had multiple winners. 
 
Reef McCarthy’s two wins in Formula Vee was enough to secure category honours over Jake Rowe, who won the middle race but couldn’t back it up with another win.  
 
The only category not to have three outings over the weekend was Sports Cars, with competitors enjoying an endurance race on both days. 

After winning race one, the joint pairing of Justin McMillan and Glen Wood were forced to share the round spoils with Benjamin Schoots, who won the second race.  
 
Click here to view results from the 2021 Island Magic.