Headlining at the annual Muscle Car Masters Father’s Day event, the Touring Car Masters presented by Autobarn was full of surprises, drama and thrilling race action for round four at Eastern Creek Raceway (NSW), this weekend.

 

John Bowe was the man of the moment with pole and three straight race wins to reclaim the overall championship lead in the #18 WesTrac Cat / Wilson Security Mustang.

 

However, it was Bernie Stack’s against-the-odds performance that took fans and fellow competitors by surprise as he took fifth place outright for the weekend.

 

In a wet and frantic qualifying session Bowe clinched his fourth successive pole position of the season, but it was the giant toppling performance of Bernie Stack that had everyone talking after he put the Gawler Storage Porsche 911 RS on the front row.

 

Further down the field another Group 2 runner, Cameron Tilley made the most of the wet to notably qualify sixth outright in the Valiant Pacer, outpacing his brother Brad’s Ford Falcon XY GT in seventh.

 

Topping the Group 3 battle, Karanfilovski’s TIFS Warehousing Alfa Romeo GTAM was ahead of Phillip Showers’ Ford Escort and the returning Datsun 510 of Cameron Mason. 

 

RACE ONE:

For the fourth consecutive round Bowe started from pole, but it was all eyes on Stack and, with a dry track, the Porsche looked likely to be swallowed up off the start line.

 

Bowe bogged down the start and dropped to sixth while Stack bolted off the line. As Bowe recovered and began scrapping with Jim Richards and Gavin Bullas, the trio closed in on the little silver bullet.

 

Stack valiantly held onto the race lead for most of the opening lap before conceding just metres before the start / finish line.

 

The larger cars quickly asserted their dominance at the front of the field and the battle for the lead intensified with the top seven Group 1 contenders all jostling for position.

 

Bowe assumed the lead and in the process set a new lap record (1:43.5154min) on lap two.

 

As the laps wore on, the seven-car stoush broke into several smaller battles with Bowe and Richards disappearing into the distance, while Bullas and Brad Tilley traded blows in third and fourth, Leanne Tander had the advantage over Andrew Miedecke closely followed by Steve Mason.

 

Richards appeared to have the faster car, but was unable to get by the very defensive driving of Bowe who greeted the chequered flag after the ten laps.

 

Bullas held off Tilley, but a sticking gear problem for Tander released Miedecke and dropped her back into the clutches of Steve Mason who pressured her all the way to the finish line.

 

The first of the Group 2 cars, Stack crossed the line in eighth to secure pole in race two’s top-eight reverse grid. The Tilleys Automotive Pacer was second in Group 2 followed by Gary O’Brien who scored his first top-three result after a difficult start to the season.

 

Running on his home track, Tony Karanfilovski’s Alfa Romeo GTAM was in great form, mixing among a number of Group 2 cars to finish impressively inside the top 20 outright and take the under 2-litre / Group 3 win unchallenged.

 

RACE TWO:

On pole alongside Steve Mason, Stack launched off the start line with Tander’s Wilson Security / McGrath Foundation XA Falcon in hot pursuit.

 

However, Mason stalled on the start line forcing the cars behind to take evasive action and as the field darted around the stricken Hercules Engines Camaro, Cameron Mason in the #7 Datsun was unable to avoid a collision with his father’s car. 

 

Charging from the rear of the grid, Mason Jnr clipped the Camaro and put his Datsun 510 out of the event. Leaving a lot of debris on the start line, the safety car was called out on lap one.

 

Stack led till lap five when the safety car pulled off and released the field. The #36 Porsche was immediately swamped by a pack of bigger Group 1 machines and dropped to seventh.

 

As Bowe and Bullas battled it out at the front of the field with Richards, Miedecke and Brad Tilley in hot pursuit, Tander began dropping down the order with accelerator cable issues.

 

Stack resumed sixth spot, while Cameron Tilley in the Pacer was impressively working the back of Graham Alexander’s Corio Auto Parts HT Monaro for seventh, but was a long way down the road from Stack.

 

As Bowe, Bullas and Richards passed the chequered flag, Miedecke stopped just metres from finish line and eventually limped to the line in 29th place, elevating Brad Tilley, Stack, and Cameron Tilley to fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

 

In a drag race between the McAlister Ford Mustang and the Stillwell Motorsport Mustang, it was Ian McAlister ahead by two tenths of a second at the finish line to round out the top three for Group 2.

 

Mixing with the Group 2 runners, Karanfilovski once again finished inside the Top 20 for his second race win of the weekend.

 

RACE THREE:

On pole alongside Bullas for race three, Bowe made his third slow race start for the weekend and Bullas’ Rain City Mustang sprinted off to an early lead.

 

Bowe was not prepared to relinquish his stranglehold on the weekend and, along with Richards pushed past Bullas.

 

Richards looked threatening for the race win, but was shown a black flag for a jump start and forced into pit lane to serve a drive through penalty which ended his challenge. Out of contention, the champion driver still responded by setting the fastest lap of the race before eventually capping 12th place.

 

In the hunt for second place it was Bullas, Tilley and Tander battling it out while Bowe stretched an unassailable lead.

 

Tander was on a mission and muscled her way into second place and managed to keep her XA ahead of Tilley’s XY throughout the closing laps, while Bullas settled into fourth.

 

At the front of the field, Bowe was in a league of his own and powered to the chequered flag almost 20 seconds clear of Tander, Tilley and Bullas.

 

Miedecke, whose car was unable to be repaired in time for race three, swapped into team owner Bob Middleton’s Camaro and delivered the other drive of the race as he charged from the rear of the grid to ninth.

 

However, after the race Miedecke was excluded from the results and awarded no points because the car was underweight due to the weight difference between drivers Middleton and Miedecke.

 

In sixth place, hot on the heels of Steve Mason, Cameron Tilley topped Group 2 in the final race, ahead of Stack and another third place for Gary O’Brien.

 

In Group 3, not having it all his own way, Karanfilovski had to settle for second as Showers got the upper hand in a dogfight for the race three win.

 

OVERALL:

Bowe’s comprehensive victory returned him the top of the championship standings. The two-time Bathurst winner now enjoys a well-deserved 19-point advantage over Bullas, while previous series leader Richards drops to third place.

 

Bullas and Brad Tilley wrapped up second and third for the second consecutive round.

 

Rebounding from a tough weekend in Darwin, Stack’s dominant performance at Eastern Creek has stretched his Group 2 championship lead ahead of McAlister, while second place for Cameron Tilley has allowed him to start to reel in Stillwell in the overall standings. In a huge boost for the Bendigo-based squad, Gary O’Brien scored his first podium of the season since making his return to the category at Clipsal.

 

Tony Karanfilovski stretched his lead over Phillip Showers, while Cameron Mason scored his first points for the 2010 season before colliding with his dad, Steve’s car on Father’s Day.

 

The Touring Car Masters presented by Autobarn now ramps up for the most iconic race meeting of the year at Mount Panorama, Bathurst (NSW) for round five of the 2010 championship on 7-10 October.

 

JOHN BOWE:

“It’s been a dream weekend. The car’s been fast since we got here.

 

“I always seem to go well at Eastern Creek. I think it’s because I do so much with V8 Race here - hundreds and hundreds of laps around this circuit.

 

“The car was fantastic. It really suited the track, but I think Jim could just as easily have won it.

 

“I had to drive very defensively in race one to keep him behind me and I think he had my measure in race three except he got a drive through for a jump start. I know how he feels; having got a penalty for jumping the start in the last two years running I was over-cautious and lost out at the start of every race, this weekend.”

 

BERNIE STACK:

“My main goal this weekend was to keep Ian McAlister behind me and to give Cameron Tilley a good run. To get ahead of Cameron was a bonus.

 

“The wet weather in qualifying to get on the front row really set us up, and then finishing eighth to start from pole in the reverse grid gave us the advantage to keep Cameron behind us.

 

“I couldn’t keep up with Cameron in race three, but I finished in front of everyone else in Group 2 which was enough to extend the lead in the championship.

 

“I’m happy we got our results back on track after a tough round at Darwin. Bathurst will be tough, but we just have to get as much as we can out of it and hold on until we get to the smaller tracks for the rest of the year.”

 

TONY KARANFILOVSKI:

“Thursday testing really paid off; we got the car set up really well for the track.

 

“Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed not to win all three races - I got caught up in the stalled grid in the last race. There were cars going everywhere trying to avoid a collision and I lost a lot of time.

 

“I had a bit of understeer in last race, too, and just couldn’t keep Phil behind me.

 

“We had a lot of friends in and out of the pits all weekend and mates watching on and supporting us, so it’s good result especially after last year’s wipeout.

 

“Now, I’m really looking forward to Bathurst.”