MRA Arrives In Sydney This Weekend.

Apr 1, 2017

For many years, the Motor Racing Australia Season has been run and won, entirely, at the Wakefield Park circuit in Goulburn, but in 2017, the series breaks with tradition, and will head north, to contest two rounds of the championship at the famed Sydney Motorsport Park.

This weekend, over 100 competitors will take to the track, with racing to be contested on the 1.8km South Circuit on Sunday.

The Series X3 NSW Championship and Miniature Race Cars will make their first appearance on the MRA schedule for season 2016, as will the Mazda MX5 Cup. They’ll join the Clubmans, Super TT and Regularity that contested Round 1.

Despite being at the centre of much controversey in rececnt times, the miniature race cars, as a class, always provide some spectactcular racing.

This weekend, Jase Collins, Chad Cotton and Matt Thewlis will lead the charge in the 11-car field, as competitors make their way from as far north as Queensland, and as far south as Victoria, to contest the round.

The Mazda MX5 Series returns with a bumper field of 16 – the biggest field we’ve seen from the one-make series at an MRA event in many years.

Daniel Deckers will lead the charge. Former Modern Sports Cars racer Lou Iezzi lines up, as do series regulars Nick Martinenko, Michael Hall, David Stone, Todd and Tim Herring, and Verne Johnson.

A strong field of contenders, in which Deckers will start as the favourite – on his day, he’s extremely difficult to defeat.

In the absence of James Dick and Jos Kroon, Glen Coutinho will go into this round of the Clubman Series with the competition chasing him.

After a difficult round in Goulburn, both Brett Lansley and Peter Brown will be looking for more good fortune at Sydney Motorsport Park, but they’ll face stiff competition, in a field of ten cars, which will make scoring a podium finish a more difficult task.

Series X3 NSW makes its first appearance on the MRA card for 2017, and like the APRA series that entertained us in round one, this category brings with it huge fields and exciting racing.

Prominent female racer Emily Duggan will be a driver to watch, after securing her first win in the series last season.

Quite a few former kart racers will join in the fun, including Blake Sciberras and Reece Harridine, while Production Touring regular Jacob Andrews will also line up.

Matt Stockwell and Ben Bargwanna ran first and second in the previous outing at the Wakefield 300, and will look to build on those performances at Sydney Motorsport Park.

As always, the headline act is Super TT, and it’s an open-horse race this weekend. A new track will bring with it new challenges, and may given the tight nature of the circuit, with no long straights for the faster cars to stretch their legs on, it may work to the advantage of the smaller cars.

Series regulars are there in force – Daniel Kapetanovic, Jimmy Tran, Parry Anastakis and Endre Saade are all back in action, and while one of those four is likely to pocket a race win throughout the day, it is quite possible that any one of up to five or six other drivers could spring a surprise across the three races.

We’re going into the great unknown with racing at Sydney Motorsport Park on Sunday – it promises to be one very entertaining day of racing.

All categories will contest three races, as well as Qualifying, with Regularity to enjoy three ten-minute sessions.

Spectator admission is FREE, with on-track action commencing from 9am.