Round 1 DC Voltage Ute Racing QLD Championship Report

The first round of the 2023 DC Voltage Ute Racing Championship was held on 18/19th February at Queensland Raceway.

A solid field of Production Utes, V8 series Utes and even a Superute turned out to battle it out over the weekend and great racing was had over all the classes.

Qualifying

Production Utes – With some drivers returning after a year or so off in the series the production ute Qualifying was always going to be interesting guide on how the utes compare to each other this year in race pace. John Young continued his fast times from last year and took out the Valmont coatings pole award.

Behind John we had the BA Barra powered ute of returning driver Troy Montgomerie in 2nd. In 3rd place was another returning racer Scott Tamati in the single cam AU intech Falcon that has been run by Peter Clarke over the last few years. Next was Danny Ford in his BA and Craig Kasper in the 3.8L single cam VU Holden rounded out the field.

Times- John Young 1.28.524 Troy Montgomerie 1.28.851 Scott Tamati 1.30.186 Danny Ford 1.30.203 Craig Kasper 1.31.407

Production Ute Valmont Coating Pole winner John Young

V8 Utes

We had some new utes and drivers for the V8 class including Robert Mcmahon in his first hit out in his new BT50 Superute. Robert ran as an invitational outlaw entry and used this round as a shake down ahead of his national debut in the super ute class in Perth later this year. Another new entry was Ashton “AJ” Gealy our 13year old junior in his V8 Ute debut also Aaron King in his VE V8. Peter Clarke has moved from the production class to V8’s in the ex McMahon Ve Maloo again first hit out in the new class.

For Aaron King was not the best start to the season suffering a mechanical issue and retired after the Qualy session and his time is not true reflection of what the VE can do.

Results-

The Valmont coating pole award went to AJ Gealy 1.25.53 next the Superute entry of Robert McMahon 1.26.949 , Peter Clarke 1.26.991 and rounding out the field Aaron King.

AJ Gealy V8 Valmont Coatings pole award winner

Race Results Production Utes

We had some great racing in the production ute class with the race of the weekend being on the yet to named new layout at QR. This is a 2.14km twisty tight track with 11 corners, not the ideal track for 1.8tonne of race ute however the utes had a cracker of a race on this track and was the highlight of the round.

John Young had the perfect weekend with 5 wins from 5 starts however he did have to work hard for it.

Danny Ford pushed John along all weekend until a gearbox issue had Danny retire in the last race of the day.

Troy Montgomerie also had some teething issues to sort out with his BA Falcon on day 1 but after working on the Ute overnight finished strong on the 3 races on day 2 so some positive news for Troy.

Scott Tamati in the rent a ute drove the wheels of the AU Falcon and had a great weekend in a Ute that he had never driven before and finished 2nd overall behind John Young for the round.

Craig Kasper the quiet achiever drove his own races and his consistency bought results coming 3rd overall for the round.

Final Round Results Production Utes

1st John Young

2nd Scott Tamati

3rd Craig Kasper

4th Danny Ford

5th Troy Montgomerie

John Young DC Voltage Ute Racing RD1 winner

Troy Montgmerie Valmont Coatings Hard Charger award

V8 Utes

The V8 ute class had a early retirement with the Valmont Coatings entry of Aaron King suffering a Diff issue. However the remaining utes put on a great show all weekend with some great battles.

The standout battle was between the 13-year-old, Ashton “AJ” Gealy in the FG Falcon and Robert McMahon in the BT50 Superute. These 2 drivers drove hard and clean all weekend with some great racing from both drivers. Young AJ having a weekend to remember taking out the Round win with 5 from 5 in class and 4 from 5 overall.

Robert McMahon used the round launch his BT50 Superute and had a successful shake down. We are all looking forward to seeing Robert and the BT50 at Perth for round 1 of the Superute series.

Peter Clarke in the new VE entry had a mixed weekend also having a shakedown of the new equipment and the ute is fast. A lot was learnt about the new ute and finished 2nd in class.

Results

1st Ashton “AJ” Gealy

2nd Peter Clarke

Valmont Hard Charger Award went to AJ Gealy.