S5000’s third race at Mount Panorama has been another crash-interrupted affair, James Golding taking the win after the race was red-flagged after an opening lap crash.
Joey Mawson and Jordan Boys collided at the entry to the Chase and spun along the grass verge then slid back across the track in the path of the field.
Most of the field missed them, but an unsighted Yoshiaki Katayama crashed into Boys’ car after it arrived in the gravel on the outside of the left-hander in the middle of the Chase, while Roberto Merhi also lost places taking evasive action.
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Race stewards have flagged their intention to investigate the incident after the race.
Mawson was able to continue despite a large gouge across the nose of his car, while the red flag period allowed Race 2 winner Tim Macrow to repair a broken header.
The race resumed behind the Safety Car with Golding leading from Nathan Herne, who’d passed Aaron Cameron at Murray’s Corner just prior to the Safety Car being called.
However, the newly-crowned Trans Am champion had a slow restart and defended Cameron strongly to hold the spot into Griffin’s Bend.
Herne then ran down Golding but ran out of time to make a move; the race went time-certain and finished after seven of the 11 scheduled laps with Golding ahead by 0.4 of a second.
Luis Leeds held on to take fourth from Merhi, while Blake Purdie snagged sixth at the final corner from Macrow, with John Martin and Mawson rounding out the finishers.
It marks the second S5000 race to be interrupted by incidents, after crashes for Katayama and Mawson prompted Friday’s Race 2 to go time-certain.