Tasmanian Tate Frost celebrated the traditional end-of-season sprint car finale in Australia, winning two of the three rounds of the Easter Sprintcar trail.
The opening night at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway belonged to Daniel Pestka who made the most of the journey from South Australia to claim the A-main in the SP entry.
Starting from third, Prestka claimed the lead early in the final to defeat Brett Milburn and Jock Goodyer.
Brock Hallett charged from 15th on the grid to finish fifth in the GW Racing entry.
Frost’s Stellar Drive
The following two nights at Mt. Gambier’s Borderline Speedway and Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway were dominated by Frost.
Pestka appeared set to claim a successive feature after leading the first 16 laps at Borderline.
Racing on probably the best surface of the three ovals, Frost claimed the lead in slower traffic.
Driving the Doolans Heavy Haulage/Kart Magic entry, Frost displayed his best form since the opening night of the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic.
He then journeyed to Warrnambool to defeat Brock Hallett and claim the third round and the series prize.Â
In what was a night of carnage on an unforgiving track, many of the favorites, including Goodyer and Hallett, suffered significant setbacks.
Jamie Veal scored sufficient points to win the $10,000 Warrnambool track championship ahead of Hallett, Goodyer and Supercars driver Cameron Waters.
A few weeks earlier, Goodyer claimed the March feature at Premier ahead of Veal and Frost.
Wrap Up
Although a number of feature events will be held in April, the Easter round marks the conclusion of the major events in Australia.
It has been an eventful season down under with track surface issues at a number of venues, including Premier Speedway which will make major improvements in the next few weeks.
• Further north, the new $100 million facility at Eastern Creek finally opened under new promoters after almost a year without racing.
Now known as Sydney Int’l Speedway, the facility resumed operations after long delays, track improvements and debate in the New South Wales parliament.
Eighteen-year-old Queenslander, Jy Corbett claimed the opening feature after a race-long battle with  Ryan Newton and Jordan Brazier. Although still requiring some refinements, the surface produced fast, consistent racing.
The long closure of the track resulted in two welcome developments — the rebuild of the speedway at the state’s largest inland city, Wagga Wagga, after years of not operating; and the return of sprint car racing to the national capital, Canberra, after an absence of decades.
The interrupted season exposed a series of issues with tracks and scheduling that will need to be addressed before next summer.
The highlight of the season was clearly the promotion of Perth’s Motorplex which consistently presented the nation’s fastest sprint car action.
Racing returns to most speedways in October and November, although the traditional June and July meetings will attract many teams to the tropical Northern Territory during the Australian winter.