Coming into the season, Cody Turacchio has a number of big goals.
One of those is to win the Perth Motorplex Opal Finance Home Loans Track Championship.
On a lightning-fast track on Sunday at the Motorplex, Turacchio showed he is well on the way to achieving his goal, claiming a heat win en route to leading every lap of the main event.
A solid 13-car field would front for the opening night, Turacchio claiming the opening race from junior graduate Logan Dean and State Champion Steven Ellement, while Debbie Garland was the unluckiest driver after an issue in turn three saw her retiring after just one lap.
The second heat was an all the way win to Rhys Cumming, defeating Shane Andersson and Brendan Newmarch, while Chloe Newmarch this time found the hard luck, her No. 37 machine coming to a stop in turn one before the race got underway and refusing to fire.
The two heat winners locked into the front row of the main event while all other cars were able to make the field except for Jeff Ross, his new motor testing not quite going the way he had hoped.
Turacchio was like a bullet from a gun as the race went green, racing away from Cumming, while Andersson was third at the end of lap one.
Ellement would get by Ando on the second circulation, but from here passing was fairly limited, Dean getting past Brendan Newmarch for fifth on lap four, while Todd Broadwood and Brendon Marshman had the best battle, trading places a number of times through the middle of the race.
In the end though, Turacchio would race away to claim the feature race win by just under two seconds, defeating Cumming and Ellement in what was a strong first night of competition.
The Formula 500’s will return to the Motorplex next Friday night for the first round of the FAST Racing Series, while in just under a fortnight, the West Coast Series will also return, with the opening round to be held at Pithara.