Steven Lines back on top after WSSC Round 8 win at Murray Bridge Speedway
The defending World Series Champion Steven Lines stormed back to top form with his win at round 8 of the World Series Sprintcar at Murray Bridge Speedway.
Round 8, 43 cars are signed in for the show and the visiting Americans have a strong presence with Kyle Hirst fresh from his Classic win, Danny Holtgraver, Terry McCarl and Randy Hannagan.
McFadden,Lines ,Murcott at Murry Bridge
Pic credit WSSC
Heading the points into the round Brooke Tatnell held a slight margin over David Murcott and the Californian Kyle Hirst. Ryan Jones was first into the spotlight when he posted the quick time for qualifying from Steven Lines and Brooke Tatnell. Disappointing times were posted by both McFadden and Jamie Veal 29th and 30th on the time sheets.
The Shootouts settled the first four rows of the A-Main grid with the top three series point scorers of Tatnell, Murcott and Kyle Hirst filling the first two rows with Steven Lines starting out of third.
The American presence was hardly notices once Hirst was out on lap 2 after the Milwaukee Tools #17 made contact with Daniel Pestka in the back straight, Pestka would restart but Hirst’s night was over.
Murcott and Tatnell would argue over the lead in the 30 lap A Main, first one then the other would command the race lead. The pair would surrender their leading positions as Lines in the Halls Motorsports entry took advantage of race traffic around the tight Murray Bridge track to lock in the race lead with pace and confidence not seen so far this series from the defending Champ..
Murcott continued to chase Lines but Tatnell would start to fall back into the chasing pack with steering box problems .The expat Aussie would eventually finish in 5th place happy for those vital Championship points.
Charging through the pack from his 13th starting position was James McFadden but his forceful run would stop behind Murcott the National Champ .McFadden would continue to press Murcott for the runner up position but the National Champ had the position and would not yeal to the charging McFadden and the pair would crossed behind a delighted Lines . The win was welcome return to form by the defending Champion but sitting 389 points behind new series leader Murcott might be too much to recover. World Series Sprintcars have 4 rounds to run before the 2015 Champion is crowned.
After a disappointing and winless Series so far Lines was elated to be back in the Championship race and post race his comments showed his relief.
Steven Lines:
Steven Lines wins again
“”We’ve had some pretty bad luck over this series but that’s the way it goes, We were very, very lucky last year and had some very good runs, so you have to take the good with the bad, and thankfully I have some really good people around me who’ve tried to get me back up and given me a great car every night so I’m very thankful and hopefully we can make a bit of a run on it from here on.”
The next race in the series is in Albany, Western Australia and the top five heading to round 9 are:
Murcott 2139, Tatnell 2115, Hirst 2000, McFadden 1956, Lines 1750
Most of the World Series Teams will stop over at Speedway City on Satrurday night January 31st for the George Tatnell Cup .
