A mammoth 34-car field will take to the grid for this Saturday’s second round of the 2021 NSW Production Touring Cars Motorsport Australia NSW State Championship, and third round of the club championship, at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The entire racing program, including qualifying and the trio of sprint races, will be held on Saturday, with Races 2 and 3 taking place under the circuit’s sophisticated LED lighting system.
In the previous round at Wakefield Park, it was rookie racer Dean Campbell who impressed, the Bathurst Mitsubishi Evo X driver snaring outright victory in the one-hour endurance race after an entertaining dice with fellow Class A1 competitor Dimitri Agathos.
Campbell and Agathos are both among the Class A1 entrants for this weekend, while another Bathurst local, Brad Schumacher, makes a welcome return to the series in his Subaru WRX STi.
Also in Class A1 are the Mitsubishi Evo Xs of Ben Kavich and Matt Boylan, the latter making his first start in NSW PTC after some previous impressive campaigns in the Pulsar Series, along with the returning Dieter Holzl (BMW 1M) and Alex Bryden, who will steer the RAM Motorsport Mercedes A45 AMG often raced by Michael Sheargold.
Class X is occupied by the BMW M4s of Anthony Soole and Simon Hodges, along with Joe Krinelos’s HSV GTS; all three cars will be contenders for outright race victories with their strong straight-line performance.
While a family commitment has ruled regular Class A2 front-runner Matt Holt out of the weekend, the class will still be hotly contested, with the HSV Clubsports of Brian Callaghan and Aaron Tebb set to do battle with the BMW M3s of Brent Howard and Gavin Clarke.
The sole representative in Class B1 is David Krusza in his BMW 135i; the talented former Australian karting champion finished on the outright podium at the Wakefield Park enduro and his car is renowned for its consistency over longer distances.
In Class B2, the defending overall Champion Daniel D’Aquino will make his second appearance aboard the ex-Geoff Kite VF Commodore SS-V Redline, while his title-winning VE will be campaigned by Glen Wilson. The other Class B2 entrants are Jonathan Fishburn and Scott O’Meley.
Class C will see the hot hatch brigade doing battle, with Chris Reeves (VW Scirocco), Stephen Muller (VW Golf GTI), John Fitzgerald (BMW 130i) and Carl Climan (HSV Astra VXR) on the entry list, along with Chris Sutton in his Subaru WRX.
In Class D, Trans-Am driver Edan Thornburrow makes a comeback to the category in his Toyota 86, while Michael Sherwell is also in an 86 race car; Matthew Ray, Liam Cade and Michael Ferns have entered their VW Polo GTis along with Stewart Follows in his Ford Fiesta STi.
The field is completed by the RaceAway Track Time Mazda 3 in Class E, to be driven by Gene Phillips.
A 15-minute qualifying session will be held on Saturday morning, ahead of Race 1 (20 minutes) on Saturday afternoon and Races 2 and 3 (both 23 minutes) under lights on Saturday evening.
