Top End Triumph For O’keeffe And Grove

Dylan O’Keeffe has his sights firmly set on the Porsche Wilson Security Carrera Cup Australia title following his maiden round win at Hidden Valley Raceway, while race three fortune handed Stephen Grove the TAG Heuer Pro-Am round win.

Sunday morning’s race two began with race one winner David Wall stalling from pole position. Third-placed Dylan O’Keeffe narrowly missed the motionless #1 Porsche, however Dale Wood wasn’t so lucky, contacting the rear of Wall and causing race-ending damage to both entries.

A subsequent turn one incident between John Steffensen and Dean Cook and contact on the restart, which ended Nick McBride’s event, allowed for a one-lap dash to the chequered flag. Jaxon Evans ultimately won race two from O’Keeffe and James Moffat.

After victory eluded O’Keeffe in race two, the final race of the weekend looked to be his, fending off a turn one challenge from Jaxon Evans before establishing a gap to second placed Moffat. Ultimately, however, Moffat charged past O’Keeffe late in the race to claim his first Carrera Cup race win in a decade, while second place for O’Keeffe, assisted by a mishap by Evans with two laps to go, handed the GT3 Cup Challenge graduate O’Keeffe his maiden round win in his third season of Carrera Cup racing.

“That wasn’t too bad. I’m about 95 per cent satisfied after leading the majority of the race. Moffat got me after the safety car as we’d lost all grip and it was so hard to drive. I just had to consolidate and it’s great to get the round win. Hopefully we can keep this going for the rest of the season,” said O’Keeffe.

“We’ve consistently been around second and third, but we still haven’t got that race win yet. It’s cool to tick off the round win and hopefully I can get that race win in the future. We’ve jumped to second in the championship and closed the gap to Evans in points so, all in all, the weekend was pretty good.”

Adrian Flack followed his race one victory on Saturday with a repeat win in the interrupted race two, in which he placed seventh outright after several Pro drivers failed to finish.

Flack was again racing well within the top 10 before a fight with several Pro runners saw the Brisbane racer drop to eighth in class by the finish, while victory to Stephen Grove handed the reigning TAG Heuer Pro-Am champion his second straight round victory.

“Another round win is great. It’s been a hard weekend and it’s really tough; you had to work really hard at it this weekend as it had a mixture of everything. I’m rapt for Adrian Flack as he did a great job with two class wins and to be up on the podium. It’s been a good weekend,” said Grove.

Flack placed second for the round from Australian Grand Prix round winner Tim Miles, who secured fourth, third and second in class across the three Darwin races.

Following a horror event for Dale Wood and David Wall, with Evans dropping to 16th by the finish of race three, O’Keeffe has moved to second in the standings and now sits 59 points from Evans in the overall standings and 68 points in the Pro points tally.

“This is my third season in Carrera Cup,” said O’Keeffe. “Last year was more of a learning year with a few good results. This season, we have the new car and the team is really starting to gel. I couldn’t be happier with how we’re going and we’re only getting better. We’re finding new things in the car and I’d say I’m driving the car pretty consistently without doing anything silly, and that’s how you win the championship. We’ll keep the same approach and see where we end up at the end of the season.”

With TAG Heuer Pro-Am round victory, Grove moves to just seven points off class leader Roger Lago, while Flack sits 98 points further behind in third.

Porsche Wilson Security Carrera Cup Australia returns to start the second half of the 2018 season at Sydney Motorsport Park on August 03-04 for a two-day joint round with its sister one-make series Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.