South Australia’s Murray Bridge Speedway has long been a happy place for Squizzy and the Mills Motorsport team; however on this occasion it certainly wasn’t happy.
The 67th running of the South Australian Speedcar Championship began well for the team; timing well during hot laps and getting a feel for the track.
Sharing the track with 70 Formula 500s for their Australian Championship combined with the afternoon sun; the track was always going to be under stress. And that was evident in our first heat having worn brand new tyre. Starting from p4 and quickly moving into 3rd it didn’t get much better than that!
Squizzy would fare much better in heat two after the track received a little rejuvenation. Beginning from p3 behind brother-in-law Andy Pearce, the pair moved to first and second and Mills began pressuring Pearce. It wasn’t long before Pearce slipped up track and Mills executed a slide job and went on to take victory.
Qualifying second highest points securing a place in the top eight pole shuffle, Squizzy would be challenged by youngster Kaidon Brown. Mills held his ground and would stay on to challenge West Australian Dayne Kingshott, and although clearly quicker he was unable to make a clean pass and would settle for outside front road.
Squizzy would eventually line up beside Brown as Kingshott suffered a flat battery and was a non-starter. On the start Brown took the lead followed closely by Mills and Nathan Smee. The three were evenly matched for the opening laps and quickly broke away from the pack. Mills and Brown traded slide jobs for a lap with Mills eventually taking the lead; however that would be short lived. Whilst exiting turn four Squizzy would abruptly come to almost a complete stop with Smee narrowly missing a collision. In the cockpit Mills tried frantically to find out what went wrong and rectify it but it would remain a mystery until today. Upon examination of the diff it was apparent that the internal coupler had sheered causing loss of drive. The team will repair the diff and be back ready to take on some more of the nation’s best at Sydney Speedway next week for the running of the NSW Championship in conjunction with the final round of the Speedcar Super Series.