Saturday night at Perth Motorplex saw the Speedcars racing in honor of Neville Lance for the fifth annual Twin 14’s, with Nicholas Rowe and Tom Payet coming away with the feature race spoils.
After qualifying and the heat races, the first feature would be lined up with the high points cars to the rear as it was during the early parts of Neville’s career, so courtesy of his difficult runs earlier in the night, last start feature winner Keenan Fleming would come from pole position with Joel Watson alongside him.
Fleming got away quickly on the first attempt at a start of the first 14-lap feature, but the yellow lights came on as Watson slowed dramatically through the field, setting up a complete restart.
Fleming led away attempt number two, with Patrick Watson into second and William Douglas moving into third as the rest of the field bunched up behind them.
Rowe was first to make his move, getting past Douglas, then disposing of Watson to be second on the second lap.
Rowe slid under Fleming on the fourth lap through turns one and two to take over the lead as behind him cars were dicing through traffic, Jake Robinson and Payet making the most of it to move into third and fourth behind Rowe and Fleming.
Rowe was well ahead with eight laps complete, with Robinson closing on Fleming and taking second place, Payet just behind and doing the same half a lap later.
Payet would then apply the blowtorch to Robinson, ducking past him on lap 11 for second, but by this point, Rowe was over three seconds ahead and although Payet raced hard, the gap was insurmountable, Rowe going on to claim his first ever Motorplex feature race win from Payet and Robinson.
Second Feature
The second feature would see the top points from all of the night’s races starting from the front once again.
Payet and Rowe hit the line together as feature two got underway, but Payet was quick to accelerate and third place starter Cody Nash would go with him, both running the low line.
Rowe would stick to the high line and attempt to get back by Nash but was unable to make the move until the second lap, getting the position once again by 0.009 seconds to complete lap two.
Shortly after the lap was complete, the yellow lights would come on as Rob Golding, aboard the Neville Lance #14 tribute car, spun to a stop in turn two.
Payet led away Rowe, Nash, Dan Golding and Robinson on the restart, with Rowe and Nash picking up right where they left off in the battle for second, trading places multiple times over the next few laps.
Eventually Rowe was able to break free, while Nash then came under pressure from Robinson and Dan Golding, Golding able to get past Robinson for fourth.
Beau Doyle was next to arrive on the scene, chasing down Robinson and looking for a way through while back up front Nash had closed back in on Rowe and made the pass for second as they came around to complete the thirteenth lap before the yellows came on again and negated the lap, with Andrew Charles coming to a stop.
This set up a green, white, checkered finish, with Payet able to break away quickly from Rowe, while Nash went high to be just ahead of Rowe on the line to complete lap thirteen.
Unfortunately Rowe would then slow dramatically and head infield, leaving Payet to race away from Nash and Daniel Golding who officially came home third to round out a great night of racing.
The Speedcars now have a few weeks break before heading down the highway to the Bunbury Bullring on Nov. 23.