Truck race is pretty ‘airy
THE chaos of Stadium Super Trucks racing was summed up in a spectacular last-gasp lunge for second place by Matt Brabham.
The Gold Coast product had relentlessly attacked former IndyCar driver P.J. Jones in the closing laps and almost snuck by on the very last ramp jump.
Instead, he landed on the back of Jones’ truck and speared into the pit lane wall as he scraped across the line behind the American.
“It was interesting,” Brabham chuckled afterwards.
“I’m just glad that P.J. is alive, I mean I landed on top of him completely.
“It was just that the barrier got moved the last lap and I saw it way up the track and I was like all right this is my mo- ment, maybe I can sneak one in there.
“I was coming up super quick and I angled it to try to get on the inside and maybe go across at the last jump and try to get him on the checkered flag but I didn’t angle it right and just landed on top of him.”
Regardless, Brabham savoured the jaw-dropping duel.
“We had a great battle and it’s pretty cool, P.J. raced against my dad back in the day and now I’m racing him pretty hard,” he said.
Jones admitted to being shocked, having thought he had successfully staved off Brabham, and lauded the lunge as “a great try”.
Brabham’s efforts were made all the more noteworthy by the fact he started on the back row of the grid.
But he was upstaged by SST points leader Sheldon Creed, who rocketed from the other back row slot to take a dominant victory.
Creed took the lead on lap 6 of 12 and opened up a gap of more than 12 seconds to Jones by the finish.
“It was tough to pass at the beginning, we were all just bunched up, all going the same speed,” he said.
“I know me and Matty sat in 11th and 12th for two or three laps … once we spread out, then you can focus on one per- son but when we’re all in a group you’re trying to look way ahead because if someone messes up then it usually ties in with people behind them.”
Brabham said the wayward trucks and flying barriers around them had made it doubly hard to overtake early.
Gold Coast motorsport veteran Paul “The Dude” Morris was among those caught up in the carnage, having to pit, while several others also spun.