With very little racing on the West Coast over the Xmas/New year period the outback express crew headed down to Esperance for a few days of rest and fun in the sun. Also to ensure the “war office” were kept happy before the second half of the season starts in earnest.

The team have always had a soft spot for the Esperance club and the club were running their traditional end of year meeting for AMCA nationals and club president Don Macalpine was keen to have super sedans as part of the nights attractions, so Rob and the team were more than happy to oblige and support the club.

With Trevor Bale and Alan Wilson from Esperance and Rick Mussara and Rob from Kalg the only cars available for the night, the racing would be about putting on a show for the crowd and making sure everyone finished the night.

Despite some seriously hot weather in the lead up to the weekends racing the track prep team had worked their “asses” off to try and get enough moisture into the track to ensure a goods night racing and that was evident as the car looked like it had been mud racing after track packing and hot laps. Oh well, we said we wanted a sticky race track. Andrew was gonna have his work cut out getting all the mud off and get the car shining again by the first heat.

The format was set to do three heats and a final and put on a display the boys did with some great racing all night.

The two rocket cars of Rob and Trevor Bale started off the front for the first heat and it was “ the Outback Express” who got the jump into turn one and had to work hard until Trevor overcooked it going into turn one and brought on the yellows. The restart order was Bawdon, Wilson, Mussara an Bale and Rob made the most of the remaining 5 laps taking two and a half seconds off the previous 5 lap record

Heat two and Rob outta pos 4 and he played cat and mouse with Alan Wilson for most of the race before finishing second to Rick with Alan Wilson third and Trevor bringing up the rear.

Heat three was another start from pos 4 and the racing was great fun despite one of the drivers trying a little too hard and doing some panel damage to the WA1 rocket. Finishing order Bale, Mussara, Wilson and Rob

The final grid  was Mussara, Bawdon, Bale and Wilson. The green dropped and Rob put the car into the lead into turn one with Bale executing a super pass around the outside of Mussara through the turn to follow the Outback express down the back straight.The two Rocket cars were out running door to door until Trevor overcooked it again and was on the infield and coming back on in third with two laps to go. After another superb pass on Mussara the finishing order would be Bawdon, Bale, Mussara and Wilson. 

 Great fun night for everyone and the coldies at the end of the night made it ll worth it. The team have some minor panel repairs before we head off to Margaret River for the next round of the Premium Drilling All Star Series on Jan 5th.

Hope to see you there and if you are there come on over and have a chat with Rob and the boys and check out the new “Outback Express” posters which will be available at Margaret River.