Last Saturday night Redcliffe resident Ricky Mitchell was back in action during round 9 of the QSSS series at the Brisbane International Speedway. With a good crowd in attendance Ricky was hopeful of putting on a show in his #19 Eagle Ignition Leads Cheetah but it wasn’t to be as his feature race ended almost as quickly as it started.

The night started off with time trials being conducted inside hot laps with Ricky going out in the third group. With the track being quite heavy Ricky was at a disadvantage, as the track only get quicker throughout the time trial session so his 18th placed time trial result wasn’t too bad considering the circumstances. It was at that point that Ricky’s luck changed for the better as the top 18 cars made the heat race inversion.

With the inversion Ricky started his opening heat from position 1 and he went on to take an important win and in the process started to claw back some of the points he had lost from time trials. Apart from a few anxious moments when lapping a couple of slower cars and a late race restart, the heat went exactly to plan.

Starting from position 2 in his second preliminary, Ricky went on to take his second heat race victory of the night but this win a lot harder than the first as he had a titanic tussle with Peter Lack. During the battle Lack actually got past Ricky just as the red light came on for a rollover handing the lead back to Ricky. During the caution Ricky made a wing adjustment and it dramatically changed the handling of the Cheetah race car and he went on to take another important heat win.

Once the heat and time trial points were tallied together Ricky had managed to move inside the top eight in the point score but he moved up a row to start from six in the A-Main after Pete Thorley withdrew from the event with a blown engine. As the green flag fell it wasn’t long before Ricky’s race was over. Despite making a great start it was all to no avail as he made contact with the turn 3 – 4 wall as he attempted to pass Todd Wanless around the outside. The contact broke the Jacobs ladder straps forcing Ricky onto the infield.

“You really have to look for positives in these sort of situations, as it is very easy to dwell on the negatives when these sorts of things happen. Ricky’s driving well, perhaps with too much enthusiasm at present, but I would much prefer that, providing it is controlled, than just sitting back waiting for cars to drop out “ added Car Owner Peter Mitchell following the event.

Mitchell Motorsport’s remaining race dates for the 2009/10 season:
• MAY 27th Darwin AUST Title Practice
• MAY 28th Darwin AUST Title Night 1
• MAY 29th Darwin AUST Title Night 2

The Mitchell Motorsport Team would like to thank the following corporate partners for their association with the 2009/10 Sprintcar season:

• Eagle Ignition Leads
• Wesfil Filters
• Penrite Oils
• Performance Wholesale
• Dayco
• Phil Michell Motorsport Media