Ryal Harris limped home fourth in a dramatic finish to the Haltech V8 SuperUte Series season to earn himself the first ever championship in the V8 era of SuperUte racing.
The fourth and final race of the week began with three drivers still in contention for the title. Cameron Crick who started on pole, Harris from fifth and Aaron Borg from ninth. All Harris had to do was finish in the top five and his points lead would be insurmountable for Crick and Borg, even with a race win.
Harris quickly moved up to fourth place off the start in his EFS 4×4 BT-50, behind David Sieders, Crick and Ben Walsh. Borg was also a fast starter from the rear of the field, quickly getting to fifth by the conclusion of lap one. As the race went on, Sieders and Harris exchanged positions a couple of times before Harris broke free by about half a second with Borg now stalking Sieders around the track. Crick suffered from mechanical gremlins that disabled him from keeping pace with the top three.
“I couldn’t get second and fifth gear throughout the race so I dropped off a bit,” Crick said.
“Unfortunate way to finish but congratulations to Ryal and the crew at EFS 4×4 and Peters Motorsport. In terms of the series,we’re definitely headed in the right direction there’s been lots of great racing so I’m interested to see what next year looks like.”
Borg made a move on Sieders at Murray’s Corner on the penultimate lap, however he locked the rear’s and sent both cars wide which allowed Harris to skip away by multiple seconds. It looked set for Harris to win the championship with a race win however he lost power on Mountain Straight, fortunately for him he was able to nurse the car home in fourth. Borg, Sieders and Crick all sailed past the ailing BT-50 to take out the podium.
“It’s not the championship result we wanted, but good to finish on a high with a last to first race win,” said Borg.
“Especially around here, to get a win at Bathurst I can never complain about that. I think the category is great now, from Sydney onwards the racing has been great and there’s a few guys keen to get in so hopefully we get a few more cars and can keep putting on a show next year.”
Harris sealed the championship by 12 points in the end from Crick in second and Borg in third.
“Inaugural season for the V8’s, it’s an amazing recovery from the diesel era, the Sieders boys have done a spectacular job,” said Harris.
“I’m so disappointed it ended the way it did in race three, no matter what I say everyone is going to think I did it on purpose. I just wanted to put a bit of pressure on and show the nose, I didn’t clear him enough and it was just a clumsy move that put him in the fence.”
“I’ve been on the other end of it sometimes, that’s just the way motorsport goes but it is disappointing. We’re working on a SuperUte program for next year, but I want to get my bum in a Super2 car, we’ve got some meetings next week to see what direction we go in. It’s already Christmas so we have to get something locked in pretty soon. We’ll know in the next month or so,” Harris concluded.
The Haltech V8 SuperUte Series plans to be back with an expanded grid in 2022, with calendar and further details to be announced in the coming months.
