Tussle Of The Titans

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday January 9, 2002

Brent Davison

With only a handful of rounds remaining, there's still everything to fight for in World Series Sprintcars. Brent Davison previews the action in Newcastle tonight.

WORLD Series Sprintcars, a high-speed war on wheels that has been raging across Australia since November, stops in the Hunter tonight with Newcastle Speedway playing host to the latest knock 'em down, drag 'em out battle.

In what has been a see-sawing saga played out across four States, Australian and American drivers have raced head-to-head in 11 rounds of the 15-round national series.

Yet even with the series 75% complete no-one has emerged as a clear favourite despite some dominant driving in the early rounds.

Australian Max Dumesny leads the title chase going into tonight's Newcastle round with 10,823 points, a lead of 1017 points over American top gun Donny Schatz with Schatz countryman Brad Furr in third spot on 9060 points.

The gap between first and second may seem vast but, with 1000 points for a feature win, 830 points for second and 665 for third the distance between the top three is tight.

Schatz and Dumesny have been the major league movers and shakers in the 2001/2002 World Series Sprintcars title chase, the pair running at the front of almost every feature race held so far this season.

Dumesny could easily carry the `Mr Consistency` title with podium finishes in all of the first nine rounds through Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria.

Only a big crash in the 10th round at Premier Speedway in Warnambool (Victoria) spoiled his finishing record.

Schatz, a regular runner in America's premier World of Outlaws sprintcar series, has also had his share of bad luck with equipment failure at crucial times.

The American, who comes to Newcastle with a win in the recent non-WSS $50,000 Sprintcar feature race Parramatta in his pocket, is already conceding that Dumesny is the man to beat at the Tomago track tonight.

`Max is going real well right now (and) I don't know what we are going to do to catch him,` Schatz said this week.

`My team is building up a new car right now because I don't believe this one reacts to the changes we make on it. Hopefully that will help.'

Should Schatz manage to pull the points away from Dumesny tonight and dominate the remaining races (Brisbane, Lismore and the final in Newcastle), he will become the first American to win the coveted World Series Sprintcar crown in the title's 14-year history.

But the 23-year-old will have to withstand the advances of 24-year-old countryman Brad Furr.

Furr, from California, had a miserable start to the season with equipment breakages and, at one round, an underweight car, but has made up for his poor start by winning the last two WSS rounds at Warnambool and Mount Gambier, enough to bring him to within 750 points of Schatz.

If triple WSS champion Dumesny is having a fairly easy run in the series the same cannot be said for quadruple WSS champ Brooke Tatnell and triple champ Skip Jackson.

Tatnell is in fourth spot, more than 2500 points behind Furr with Jackson more than 700 points in arrears.

Tonight's Newcastle WSS round (the first of three NSW rounds) has attracted the cream of the crop with 24 drivers, including the 15-strong WSS-contracted core, entered.

Star drivers joining the fight tonight include Adrian Maher, Kerry Madsen, John Shore, Brett Loadsman, Troy Little and American Kurt Winker in Kelly Linigen's car.

Also making its Newcastle debut tonight is a giant video screen that shows instant replays an real time and slow motion, race action and interviews.

Racing starts with qualifying from 6pm, and heat races from 7pm.