Wood celebrates 100th Carerra Cup start with clean sweep

Monday 19 June, 2023
Photos: Porsche Motorsport Australia
Dale Wood has produced a dominant display in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship’s latest round at Hidden Valley Raceway, winning all three races as part of the Supercars event.
 
It what was a commanding clean sweep of the highly competitive one-make championship, Wood won all three races having led every single lap of the weekend after securing pole position by five hundredths of a second over Jackson Walls
 
Walls was Wood’s biggest challenger in the first race and applied constant pressure for much of the 18-lap outing but could never get past as Wood eventually crossed the line three tenths ahead.
 
Despite not winning the race, the second place was enough to see Walls take the outright lead of the championship, while Wood moved up the standings after a challenging opening round.

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The race one winner then made it two in a row after pulling away from Walls in the early stages of the race, before having to defend his lead after a safety car intervention restart.
 
Only this time, it was Callum Hedge who was in second place as the young Kiwi made it past Walls and finished one second behind Wood.
 
In the final race, Wood secured yet another lights to flag victory in his 100th appearance in the category, once again beating Hedge and Walls over the line.

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The Victorian also capped off his perfect weekend with a new lap record in the third and final race, beating the previous one that had been set by Bayley Hall earlier in the day.
 
"I don't know what it is about racing here, but I'll take it,” Wood said.
 
“We're in a good place at the moment. Last year, we had a totally different car to what we had this year but we've learnt a lot. We have a pretty good package going on in the team, I was loving flying the new colours in Shannons and all my supporters.
 
"It's just unbelievable. To go and do that, to get pole, three race wins and a lap record I'll call that a good weekend. It's bloody awesome, bring on the next one."
 
While the outright and Pro class was dominated by one driver, the Pro-Am class saw three different winners across the round, yet it was Dean Cook who claimed the overall round-win, despite not winning a race.

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A trio of podiums was enough to secure the round win for the Victorian as he beat race one winner Sam Shahin in the final two races, while the other race winners Adrian Flack and Rodney Janes finished the round in fourth and fifth respectively behind Tim Miles.
 
Cook’s round win saw move up the standings to second in the Pro-Am class and 31 points off the leader in Flack after two rounds.  
 
"I think I only knew (about being the round winner) on the last lap, the boys gave me a call and I thought I'd better bring it home,” Cook said.
 
"I wasn't there until Rodney might've made some errors and I jumped out, but only two or three laps to go. It's been very nice to spray the champagne here in Darwin."
 
View the full series points here.
 
The Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship continues on the streets of Townsville on 7-9 July, as part of the Repco Supercars Championship support card. 
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