Quicksilver Jamie inflicts traffic Payne on rivals

By Brett Swanson
JAMIE Payne – in his quicksilver Commodore – came from behind and used lapped traffic to perfection to take a narrow victory over defending titleholder and local track hero Simon Bent in an enthralling and exciting VSC Open Sedan Victorian State Championship at Nyora Raceway last Saturday.
Making it a three-way battle for the lead was Dale Morrison, who completed the podium of top-class racers.
The other headline, the inaugural Dave Maslen Memorial for Division 2 Hot Rods, was held in honour of one of the Nyora club’s hardest working and keenest supporters.
Some of Maslen’s children and grandchildren were on hand to deliver the hardware to winner Daryl Logue and placegetters Scott Laidlaw and Toby Callanan.
State championships are always important and for third-generation racer Payne – who has normally not chased them – the late decision to contest the VSC Open Sedan Title proved fruitful as he bagged his first Victorian crown.
“I’m absolutely stoked,” Payne said.
“My mum Pat won a couple of state titles and she was here, so it was special to win in front of her.”
What made Payne’s win even more meritorious was that he had never turned a wheel on the tight Nyora layout – and also the fact that he did it without any crew.
“We’ve recently built a house and I don’t have a shed to work out of, so we basically race out of the trailer,” Payne said.
“It’s not ideal, but it’s a good little car and it went around pretty neatly.
“I thought I’d be competitive, but I’ve seen Simon (Bent) run around here and I didn’t really think we had that much of a shot at the win.
“The last five or six laps were pretty ugly from inside the car as I’d used up all my brakes and without any stagger I was really struggling to get the car to turn in. I thought Simon would have a real shot at me, but it turns out he had no brakes left either.”
Bent was magnanimous in defeat, offering: “I had nothing left for him (Payne). He drove well and deserved the win.”
Bent started his title defence in fine style, winning the opening heat after overcoming Dale Meade’s bigger V8 Commodore.
Nyora’s oldest club member, Ray Gould, then put on a real spurt of speed to win the second heat from Morrison and Payne – with all three crossing the line nose to tail.
Bent defeated Morrison and Daniel Argoon in heat three, while Payne scored the heat four win from the front row ahead of Mick Evans and Gould.
Gould doubled his tally of heat wins in heat five when he defeated brothers Matthew and Marcus Reddecliffe and in the final heat, Morrison led home Bent with Payne running a patient third.
“My mind set was a little different as often title races turn into elbows up, crash and bash affairs,” Payne said.
“Simon and Dale were racing hard up front and I thought a top-three here will still qualify me well for the final.”
In the final 10 laps, Payne held sway at the lead as Bent had his second contact and spin with Cole but over the final few laps it got really intense as the three leaders closed up.
“I use the brakes pretty hard to turn the car and I had no stagger because I wanted to be able to drive the car hard off the corner,” Payne said.
“But when I ran out of brakes it got pretty ugly and I was just waiting for Simon to make his move.”
Bent, though, was in a similar brakes situation and was unable to take advantage of the leaders’ dilemma and, adding to his woes, Morrison was poking and prodding and trying to find a way past so Bent had to be careful of the assault coming from behind.
In the end, the trio raced on nose to tail, pushing and rubbing in a fantastic display of racing and a fitting title conclusion.
Competitors in the Dave Maslen Memorial raced for a prize pool that far exceeded the one at the recent state title – thanks largely to the efforts of Kate and Euan Sell.
Part-timer Andrew Galley got things off to a fine start passing Toby Callanan for the win in the first heat.
Gordon Angus led heat two before Rob Tatterson and Daryl Logue swapped the lead a couple of times before Logue got the ascendancy.
Scott Laidlaw was able to beat Galley in heat three while Logue simply ran away and hid in heat four.
Not surprisingly, Logue had secured pole from Galley, Laidlaw, Tatterson, Callanan, Alan McKinnon, Ricky Mills, Gordon Angus, Jimmy Low, Daniel Angus, Alan Ward, Michael Kruschel, Jason Seymour, Brett McNamara and Andrew Kruschel.
Bucking the trend, Galley beat Logue to the front in the feature event until Low smacked the wall in turn four on lap two. Galley led a tight pack of Logue, Laidlaw and Callanan away until Tatterson finished up in the turn four wall also.
Galley again led the quartet away in an exciting dice until finally he ran a little wide into turn four and Logue slipped underneath and into the lead.
Laidlaw did likewise as they hit turn four but slight contact saw Galley spear into the wall and out of the race.
From the restart Logue then checked out on the rest of the field to take the win from Laidlaw who had a good gap on Callanan with Mills, Gordon Angus, McKinnon and Seymour completing the finishers.
The Bob Hickson Memorial will be the feature race for the big banger super sedans at the 16 April meeting at Nyora.