James McFadden has claimed successive Western Australian Sprintcar Championships.
His latest win was behind the wheel of his new team, the Brady Motorsport No. W23 which made its debut in round five of the Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series at Perth Motorplex last night.
McFadden won the Jolly Good In Car Audio 40-lap feature race ahead of Dayne Kingshott and Jason Pryde.
For McFadden, the result backed up his win in the Williamson Motorsport No. W3 a year earlier.
He started the night by being the sixth quickest car overall from the 29-car field entered.
McFadden then won his first heat race and was third in the next outing, setting up a front row start on the outside of Callum Williamson, who set the Victory 1 Performance Quick Time at the start of the show.
After dropping a couple of spots at the start of the final, McFadden clawed his way to the lead by lap five – and he held that spot for the remainder of the journey.
For Kingshott, the second placing was a huge recovery after a mediocre qualifying time (ninth overall) before a third and a fourth in his heat races, the latter one where he was involved in an incident on the main straight and the No. W2 sustained damage.
By lap eight he was up to fourth but by the race midpoint he dropped from third to seventh, before slowly pegging back the deficit, and striking a major blow in the last few laps to grab a couple more spots and second placing.
Pryde started fifth and put in a solid effort all night for his best drive of the season, and one of his best results for a while.
He was second overall in qualifying, only being pipped by Williamson, before taking a second and a seventh in his heat races.
Pryde tucked the No. W14 down low for much of the race and it worked to his advantage – on lap 22 he was up to second and moved back into second with only a few laps remaining, only to be edged out by Kingshott in the dying stages.
Kerry Madsen, in his second appearance in the Diamond Bay Motorsport No. W26, took fourth after starting 11th.
Madsen showed a lot of pace up high on the track when others were unable to make it stick.
He ran in second for a big part in the latter stages before dropping back in the last few laps.
Queenslander Luke Oldfield rounded out the top five in the Peet Motorsport, his first outing for the team for the season, after starting fourth.
Kris Coyle started 15th and raced up to sixth, ahead of Daniel Harding who started 16th and took seventh, Aaron Chircop who started sixth, was eighth (after even hitting the lead at one point, but also dropping back to 12th later on), A.J. Nash who went from 20th to ninth (and is this round’s Kincrome Hard Charger) and Taylor Milling who went from 14th to 10th.
Williamson, was second when he tangled with Brooke Newson on lap 21, seeing him go back to be the last car on the lead lap at the restart, clawing back some points with an 11th.
New Zealander Michael Pickens was 12th after starting 18th and being one of the cars caught up in a crash in an earlier heat race.
The red lights were activated on lap 15 after Jason Kendrick rolled and was out of the contest.
Of the 28 cars to start the feature race, Brooke Newson was the only other non-finisher.
Drivers and teams will now take a break to prepare for the nine-night international Speedweek series that kicks off at the Perth Motorplex on Dec. 26.
