Throughout his career, Jamie Oldfield certainly hasn’t always been lucky, but tonight at the Perth Motorplex he certainly was as two of the top contenders found themselves out of the race, paving the way for Oldfield to grab his first feature win of the Late Model season.
Twenty-one cars would front for the second round of the Pro Dirt Series proudly presented by ABN Trade Mates, with heat race wins going to Joe Chalmers, Oldfield, Brent Vosbergen and Jay Cardy.
Unfortunately for Australian champion Chalmers his meeting was over early, unable to take the green in the feature event and joining fellow front runners Brad Blake and Warren Oldfield on the sidelines.
As the race went green polesitter Vosbergen was immediately into the lead followed by Ken Macpherson and Cardy who muscled his way into third.
Vosbergen took advantage of the clear air and checked out, Macpherson left to chase as he was followed by Cardy, Oldfield and Luke Halliday rounding out the top five early in the race.
Lapped traffic came into play on the fifth lap but did nothing to slow down Vosbergen.
Kenny Mac found it a little more difficult initially through the traffic, but then found what he needed and began to close the gap on Vosbergen, down to just a second behind with ten laps complete.
At the same time, Cardy went high through turn three after avoiding a lapped car, allowing fourth placed Oldfield to close in and look for a way through.
Two laps later Cardy again had trouble with a lapped car zigging when he thought it was zagging and Oldfield stuck the nose inside once more, but again Cardy was able to hold strong.
By this point, Vosbergen was half a lap ahead of the third-placed battle, and a quarter lap ahead of second placed Macpherson, having found his straps at the right time and pulled away.
Lap 21 saw Chris Barrow collect the main straight wall and bounce off, leaving the rapidly approaching Macpherson nowhere to go. Luckily Macpherson was able to throw the model sideways and made reduced contact with the back of Barrow, both able to continue, but half a lap later Macpherson’s once immaculate machine would disappear in a cloud of smoke and steam and head infield.
This left Brent three-quarters of a lap ahead of the now second placed battle, Jamie able to get past Cardy for second as all the issues for Macpherson were happening.
Freddy Kinsella was now fourth having got past Halliday and was beginning to close on Oldfield.
All of a sudden, despite looking like he had the race sewn up, Vosbergen also went up in a plume of smoke and slowed dramatically before coming to a rest against the infield turn four curb, seeing the yellows come on for the first and only time in the race.
Jamie led away Kinsella, Cardy, Halliday and the impressive David Boyes on the restart with three laps to go, Jamie making the most of his lead to race away from Kinsella.
Kinsella attempted to go with him and even showed the nose briefly, but Oldfield was simply too strong and raced away to claim his twenty ninth Pro Dirt Series feature race victory.
Kinsella would come home second, claiming both the Heatleys Safety, Industrial & Automotive Hard Charger and Ross’s Auctioneers & Valuers All Star Awards in the process while Jay Cardy bounced back in fine fashion after an opening night wreck to claim third.
The Pro Dirt Series drivers will have no time to rest now, with round three, proudly presented by Maddington Toyota and CanningVale Toyota, back at the Perth Motorplex in just six days.