OPEN-WHEELERS CAN BREAK BOWE’S TRACK RECORD
AUSTRALIA’S newest low-flying motor racing rocket ships are certain to break John Bowe’s long-standing outright lap record when part two of Race Tasmania hits Baskerville Raceway this weekend.
That’s what has Race Tasmania founder and GRM Supercars team boss Garry Rogers excited ahead of practice for the open-wheeled S5000s there today ahead of qualifying and racing on Saturday and Sunday.
As well as S5000, Race Tasmania also features TCR two-litre turbo touring cars, Touring Car Masters and 16 V8-powered Trans Ams that will contest the Baskerville Ten Thousand with a prize of $10,000 to the winner.
After reaching its COVID-19 restricted crowd limit of 5000 people per day for Race Tasmania part one at Symmons Plains from Sunday to Tuesday, part two promises to be one of the biggest race meetings at Baskerville in decades.
“The whole concept for the backto-back meetings was about promoting travel to Tasmania for motor racing events and spreading them out so people could come to Tassie, enjoy the sport, spend some money and support the local economy,” Rogers said.
Rogers is confident the S5000 cars will break Bowe’s 40-year-old lap record of 50.16s set in his Ralt RT4.
“They broke the lap record at Symmons Plains, and I have no doubt they will do the same at
Baskerville. We were working on getting a championship round at Baskerville for the S5000 but there are some track regulations we haven’t quite met yet.
“We will do that over the next few months and certainly next season they will have a championship round at Baskerville as well as Symmons Plains.”
Tasmanian Owen Kelly, whose crew chief is Nascar ace Marcos Ambrose, heads the field for the Trans Ams.
“The pick of the bunch will be the
Trans Ams — they are seriously exciting cars and they have extremely close racing.
“The level of competition among the top five or six drivers is as good as anything there is about.”
John Bowe, along with fellow Tasmanian Adam Garwood, headline the Touring Car Masters field with “JB” having just claimed his 100th TCM career win at Symmons.
Tickets from https:// www.ticketmaster.com.au/racetasmania-tickets/artist/2759975