Media statement: 11 May, 2008
Former Wallaby Ben Tune was discharged from hospital in Perth today in good spirits and is looking forward to returning home to Brisbane.
Tune was injured in a single car accident when his car rolled over in the MINI CHALLENGE round at Barbagallo Raceway yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. He was taken by ambulance to hospital for precautionary examination overnight and underwent other medical tests today before being discharged.
Round 3 of the 2008 MINI Challenge began at Barbagallo Raceway in Western Australia earlier today. As reported previously there’s been a few driver changes to the line up with drivers swapping seats or making their debuts, such as Todd Wanless, pictured above. But, perhaps, the driver with the most potential to rattle a few cages this weekend is Leanne Tander.
Leanne, wife of V8 Supercar driver Garth Tander, will be driving one of the MINI Uber-Star Cars this weekend. The MINI Uber-Star Cars are designed to bring a broader focus to the MINI Challenge at each round, through engaging high profile personalities from the areas of sports, entertainment and media. Leanne Tander is arguably Australia’s most credentialed female race driver, becoming the first lady racer in the world to win a Formula 3 race and in 2007, she went perilously close to wrapping up the Australian F3 Championship. She currently lies fourth in the 2008 F3 Championship. She wasted no time in staking her claim for outright honours either, posting the second fastest time in this morning’s first practice session, behind fellow West Australian David Turner.
It’s just over a week until Round 3 of the 2008 MINI Challenge fires up and the off track action since the Wakefield Park round has almost been as frenzied as the on track thrills and spills with a series of moves taking place (read the full articles below for the latest news). Round 3 of the 2008 MINI Challenge will support the BigPond 400 at Barbagallo Raceway, May 9-11, the fourth round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.
Race 2 of MINI Challenge from Barbagallo will be shown LIVE nationally on the Seven Network’s V8 Supercar coverage, with a 30 minute post-produced highlights package airing on May 31 from 1:30pm on the network.
Today MINI Australia announced that former test Rugby player Ben Tune will be taking the hot seat in the Uber-Star Car in Perth. “I’m definitely excited about it,” Tune said. “It isn’t every day you have an invitation to get behind the wheel of a racecar. I’m really looking forward to having a lot of fun while I’m in Perth, but also I hope to develop further as a driver.” Tune is a noted revhead and has business interests importing a range of accessories for the motoring market. The pun possibilities here are endless, haha. All the best to Ben, I’d love to be offered a drive like this, what a blast he will have!
AUSmotive.com attended today’s MINI Challenge meeting at Goulburn’s Wakefield Park. Click HERE to see a gallery of all the action. Or you can click below to read the rest of this entry and see a selection of images.
The first series of images are from this morning’s Race 2, followed by some colour and detail from pit lane before finishing off with pictures from Race 3.
Melbourne’s Nathan Geier has won Round 2 of the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge, held this weekend at Goulburn’s Wakefield Park Raceway. Yesterday’s Race 1 winner, Paul Stokell, from the DecoRug team, looked to have Race 3 and the round win in his hands until he mysteriously lost all power in his car and was forced to retire on lap 6. Geier had his Split Image Project Management MINI sitting safely in second place, and was able to fully capitalise on Stokell’s misfortune to inherit a lead he would not surrender, ultimately taking the chequered flag on lap 15.
The 25 year old Geier was full of excitement after his round win, “It’s kind of surreal! I’m still in shock to be honest. Paul (Stokell) was driving real well, it was really unlucky for him. I was following him and heard his car shut down and from then on started worrying about mine! I was trying to concentrate on my lines and not worry about how far Grant was behind me. Next round will be interesting. We’ll have an additional 25kg on board, which means it’s a totally different ballgame. It was a great weekend all round and really sets us up well for the remainder of the season.â€
Thanks to AUSmotive reader Tiaan for sending me this footage of the opening lap from Race 3 at today’s MINI Challenge held at Wakefield Park. This meeting was Round 2 of the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge and the round win was secured by Nathan Geier. Stay tuned for more details soon.
Paul Stokell has brought home a one-two for the DecoRug Motorsport team in the first race of the second round of MINI CHALLENGE at Wakefield Park Raceway today, leading home team-mate Grant Denyer.
Stokell staved off an early charge from Melbourne racer, Nathan Geier (Split Image Project Management). Geier, who has been the revelation of MINI CHALLENGE to date, put in a solid performance until a small mistake at turn nine on the eighth lap cost him significantly.
That allowed Grant Denyer to close up, and a lap and a half later, he advanced into second when Geier ran wide.
Denyer had been involved in an early fight with Neil McFadyen (Scope Signs & Graphics). That lasted until the end of lap one, when the Seven Network personality dived late under brakes at turn one and got through, with minimal room to spare.
McFadyen had a lonely race in fourth, but was able to close up on Geier on the final lap. The success ballast of 25kg from his round one victory seemed to have some effect on the Sydney-based racer.
Starting on pole for tomorrow’s race two will be Gary Young (Salta Constructions) when the top six finishers from today are reversed. The Melbournite was involved in a race long battle with Perth’s Paul Fiore (Shell Helix Ultra), a superior start by Fiore proving decisive.
Round 2 of the exciting new MINI Challenge series kicks off at Goulburn’s Wakefield Park this weekend, with the great news that new drivers have signed on as the series continues to grow. The ingredients are there for this to be a fantastically competitive series and I know that MINI Australia staff have been working feverishly in the background to ensure the series is a great spectacle for all motor racing fans.
I’ll be tagging along to Wakefield this weekend with clubMINI and if you’re nearby and can get out to Goulburn this weekend I highly recommend it.
The action starts on Friday with the MINI Challenge cars having practice sessions at 9:55am, 12:25pm, qualifying is at 3pm. There will be three races for the MINIs, the light goes green for Race 1 at 1:15pm on Saturday, and there’s two races on Sunday, Race 2 begins at 9:30am and Race 3 starts at 1:45pm. The weekend’s events will also see racing from the Porsche Carrera Cup, Formula Ford and the Fujitsu V8 Supercar. Plenty of value for your $35 entry fee.
This weekend saw the world racing debut of the new R56 MINI Challenge cars. The 2008 Australian series kicked off at Sydney’s Eastern Creek and Neil McFadyen from the M3 Motorsports team has taken the round win. McFadyen claimed the chequered flag in Race 1 and Race 3, with Race 2 being won by Grant Denyer. The first clip above is the intro segment from the TV coverage, broadcast just before Race 3 went to air.
See below for clips of the race.
This is one of those rare articles on AUSringers that has a solely Australian focus. In some great news for MINI fans, the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge has secured a superb free to air TV package with Channel 7. There will be a total of seven hours of programming, with the majority being broadcast LIVE into households across Australia. The first event will be at Eastern Creek in just a few weeks with race 3 on Sunday 9 March attracting live coverage.
Read the official press release and broadcast dates below for more information.