Donut King Racing has made the best-possible debut in the Commodore Cup national series, with Adam Beechey taking out the overall round win in his first full-time run in the category.
After qualifying eighth, Beechey avoided several on-track incidents in the weekend's opening race to move up to third. A great start in Race 2 moved Beechey up to the race lead, from which he was able to hold out a hard-charging Scott Andrews to take his maiden Commodore Cup race win.
Heading into the final race, Beechey was equal on points with Andrews and had a lot of work to do, thanks to the unusual race format in which competitors' starting positions for Race 3 were determined based on their lap-times from Race 2. Beechey started from eighth while Andrews started second. However, the final race was affected by steady rain and Beechey's wet-weather experience came to the fore - he finished fifth while Andrews finished seventh.
As well as winning the round, Beechey also scored the Bendix Brakes Hard Charger award, for the greatest positional gain from qualifying to his overall round result. "I am over the moon with my first weekend as a full-time Commodore Cup driver," Beechey said. "Coming into the round, I was quite happy just to qualify in the top-10, and I thought top-five would have been a good effort for the races, considering the amount of Commodore Cup experience a lot of the other drivers have. To come away with the round win exceeds all my expectations.
"In Race 1, I was lucky in some ways to avoid a lot of the carnage. Tony Bates and Nick Parker came together right in front of me at one point, and I had to do a good job to avoid getting involved in that incident.
"I made a good start in Race 2 and managed to get up to second behind Jason Domaschenz, and when he had a gearbox problem, I took the lead. I had to drive well to hold out Scott Andrews though, because he was very fast.
"The conditions were very slippery for the last race and I knew that if I stayed on the track and stayed out of trouble, I could get a good result. I probably had a bit more pace than Andrews in the wet, and he made some mistakes as well, so while I wasn't the fastest in the final race, I did what I needed to do to win the round.
"Kenton Ferguson has done a fantastic job with the car. It is performing strongly and it is extremely well presented. Overall, I am stoked!"
Adam Beechey leads the Commodore Cup national series after the first of 6 rounds, with the next round to be held at Phillip Island, May 1-2.
Adam Beechey - Round Results Summary
Qualifying: 8th
Race 1: 3rd
Race 2: 1st
Race 3: 5th
Overall: 1st (127 points)
Commodore Cup national series - top-10 pointscore (after 1 of 6 rounds)
1. Adam Beechey - 127
2. Scott Andrews - 125
3. Tony Bates - 119
4. Matt Chick - 116
5. Jason Domaschenz - 109
6. Nick Parker - 106
7. Ross McGregor - 101
8. Garth Duffy - 96
9. Josh Hughes - 92
10. Adam Lloyd - 88
