November 2 marked the final round of the OZGRIND Ute Racing Championship 2024 at Lakeside.

Production Utes

It was a three-horse race for the championship going into the last round of the year. The man to beat who held a handy lead on points into the last round was Troy Montgomerie in the BA Falcon. John Young last year’s champion and Craig Kasper both in Commodores were out to spoil the party and this set the temperature for the last few races of the year as every point was going to count for this year’s championship.

Troy Montgomerie took out pole position, with Craig Kasper and John Young very close behind. This is when the drama started with Troy’s BA having a water pump pulley fail in the late stages of Qualifying. With no spare pump on hand Troy was off to search the land for replacement to continue his day on track.

The search for the offending part was fruitless and in what was a cruel way the end Troys year with no running on Day 1. This was a huge hit to his points. John Young was now in the prime position to take the advantage of Troys misfortune.

This is when John Young and his commodore also had technical difficulties. John however planned ahead and bought to the track the ultimate spare parts package in the form of a complete spare race Ute. Ironically the spare car was a BA Falcon that saved the Holden drivers’ championship.

Troy Montgomerie BA Falcon

Over the next 6 races the title was settled with some very close hard racing. Troy made the huge effort of talking his ute back to the sunshine coast on Saturday to repair and return the next day and work his way from rear to front of the grid by end of day 2. But the damage of dropping the races on the previous day was too much to pull back and it was not going to be Troy’s year.

The round result was – Championship Result

1st John Young 1st John Young

2nd Craig Kasper 2nd Craig Kasper

3rd Mick McCloud 3rd Troy Montgomerie

4th Troy Montgomerie

Production Ute Champion 2025 John Young

Production Ute Runner up Craig Kasper

Production Ute racing 2024 2 runner up Troy Montgomerie

V8 Utes

In the V8 class going into the last round Brendan Exner had enough points up his sleeve to take out the championship he only needed to finish the first race of the day and the trophy was his.

Brendan Exner and the V8 Falcon was too strong for the VE Commodore all season. The Holden has some straight-line advantage, but the race package of the Ford was superior all year.

Brendan took the opportunity to enjoy the moment in last race of the day and to say tyre saving was not part of the picture was a understatement.

For the Holden well there is always next year.

2024 V8 Champion Brendan Exner

V8 2024 V8 Championship runner up Peter Clarke

Huge thanks to our 2024 series sponsor OzGrind polished concrete. All the competitors, track volunteers , family and friends and everyone that makes our racing possible and enjoyable.

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