Round 1 - Australia (Adelaide)



ACE SERIES
Australia (Adelaide)
Race Distance: 81 laps
1998/99 Pole Position: Jan Svehlik (1:07.086)
1998/99 Race Winner: Jan Svehlik (1h37:19.281)


Qualifying

PosNo.DriverTeamTimeDiff.LapsPts
1.  # 7  Nuno Maltez  Rocketship  1:07.542  +00.000  12  20
2.  # 9  Thomas Bodlien  Power Tech  1:07.830  +00.288  9  16
3.  #11  Marco Saupe  Typhoon F1  1:07.955  +00.413  11  14
4.  #27  Rafal Ziarnik  Yapamotox  1:08.700  +01.158  10  12
5.  # 5  Mike Hogg  Team Ecosse  1:08.969  +01.427  11  10
6.  #25  Anthony Long  Potato Racers  1:09.787  +02.245  11  8
7.  #39  Stephen Wallace  FutureTech Racing  1:12.183  +04.641  9  6

Race

To Finish First, First You Have To Finish. (Well Maybe...)

Team Ecosse finally won it's first race at the start of it's fourth season. In an incident packed race no cars made it to the chequered flag. Mike Hogg reports.

The first major story of the Ace Series year was the non-show of the title favourite Jan Svehlik, his Bolgani team staying home to get the machine together following their split with Wild 13. Indeed, a number of teams didn't make the trip - prefering instead to get their squads together and test the cars after the late decision to actually have a championship this year.

Under the warm afternoon sun the six entrants filed into their grid positions, Nuno Maltez and impressive debutant Thomas Bodlien taking their places ahead of an empty slot and Rafal Ziarnik. The empty slot should have been Marco Saupe but the Typhoon F1 race and T-cars had all come down with a mysterious electrical problem which could not be identified. Saupe refused to comment on the problem and the team had packed up and left before the start of the race.

As the lights came on the purring of the cars became an ear-shattering whine until the lights went back out and the cars blasted away. A slow start from both front row men held up Ziarnik while Mike Hogg flew through the pack to lead. Anthony Long also made a good start in his home race, moving up to 4th. Before the end of the first lap Bodlien lined up and passed Maltez in a crisp manouvere. On lap 2 he repeated the move on Hogg for the lead while Ziarnik recovered to take back 4th from Long.

The cars started to settle and on lap 6 Bodlien began pulling away from Maltez who had passed Hogg on the same lap. Free from the Team Ecosse car he then promptly passed Bodlien but as the Power Tech driver fought back Maltez whacked a kerb and loosened the nose of the Rocketship. By the time he had come back out of the pits following repairs he was down in 5th.

Slowly being caught by Hogg, Bodlien made a mistake at the end of the Alan Jones Straight and spun, allowing the Team Ecosse car through. On lap 17 the Scotsman made the first of three planned stops and dropped to 3rd. Ziarnik was by now breathing down Bodlien's neck for the lead but as he pulled out of the slipstream to pass the Power Tech he found himself staring at the back of Stephen Wallace's lapped FutureTech car. He managed to jump on the brakes but the resultant bang sent Wallace nose first into the tyre barriers. "I pulled over to let Bodlien through and suddenly another car pushed me straight off," commented Wallace, "If he'd been going any faster when we touched it could have been a huge shunt."

On the next lap, however, Ziarnik's engine blew heavily and a thick oil slick was laid down at the entrance to the hairpin. Oil flags came out but it was too late to save Anthony Long who spun gracefully onto the outfield to retire.

All this left Bodlien 11 seconds ahead of Hogg until he pitted on lap 26 for fresh Ds. On lap 29 Wallace came into the pits for repairs, the front wing finally detaching itself after the earlier trip into the tyre wall. Bodlien was also in on the same lap, his wing becoming detached after some over-enthusiastic kerb-hopping. With Hogg well away this left him in third but it soon became second when Maltez and Wallace crashed at the chicane - neither blaming the other for what was a "racing incident."

With only two cars now running, Bodlien was 1 minute behind Hogg and he began to reel off some fast laps before pushing too hard in the complex of S bends and hit the wall, tearing the front left wheel off the car. "My fault," he shrugged later with a wry grin, "I pushed too hard and went off. I'm encouraged by the team's first race though."

Hogg now faced the prospect of half the race on his own and he settled into a rythym, stopping for tyres on laps 41 and 61 and setting the fastest race lap. Then on lap 68 smoke could be seen eminating from the MSP engine unit in the car and over the next 6 laps his times plummeted from 1 minute 12s to 1 minute 28s before the engine gave up completely 6 laps before the end of the race. A bemused Hogg stepped from his stranded car at the end of the pit straight to be taken by an official's car along with rookies Bodlien and Wallace to a totally ecstatic podium celebration.

PosNo.DriverTeamTimeDiff.Pts 
1.  # 5  Mike Hogg  Team Ecosse  1h32:47.118  +0:00.000  180+5+3
2.  # 9  Thomas Bodlien  Power Tech  37 laps  51.8%  86+5
3.  #39  Stephen Wallace  FutureTech Racing  30 laps  42.2%  67 
4.  # 7  Nuno Maltez  Rocketship  30 laps  41.2%  65+5
5.  #25  Anthony Long  Potato Racers  24 laps  33.0%  50 
6.  #27  Rafal Ziarnik  Yapamotox  24 laps  32.9%  49 


Last modified: Sunday 31 October 1999 - 17:39