OJC: Less Than 50 Points Covering Top 9 Heading Into Morgan Park
It is quite possible that every adjective in the dictionary has been used to describe the action in the bLU cRU Oceania Junior Cup in 2023. Like all junior racing, the action out on track is best described as ‘mental’. There have been two rounds this year with two different winners.
In round one at Sydney Motorsport Park, it was young New Zealander, Haydn Fordyce who led the way with two victories, and a seventh place, from Valentino Knezovic and Riley Nauta who were second and third overall respectively. Bodie Paige was the other race winner in Sydney, but it could’ve been more except for an incident during the first race that was under lights. In a battle for the lead with Knezovic and his younger brother Jake, there was a coming together and the Paige boys went down and out of the race, so left the round in fifth position, 21 points behind the leader. A hard learning curve but it is all part of the game.
At Queensland Raceway, the multiple-time dirt track champion made up for his drop in points in Sydney to clean sweep the three races to leapfrog up the points table to now be leading the cup chase by 10 points from Knezovic with Fordyce now third a further three points adrift in third place. Three wins give a false impression of how close the racing was, with Paige taking the victories by a combined time of 0.129 of a second! Yep, you read it correctly! That was the gap for all three races!
The competition has never been closer in the Oceania Junior Cup
In the first race, Paige crossed the line 0.026 of a second in front of Archie Schmidt with Riley Nauta on the OJC podium for the first time two tenths away in third. The next chapter saw Knezovic 0.029 of a second off the win with South Australian Rikki Henry a further tenth of a second away with the top five covered by less than half a second. In the final race, Paige managed to increase the winning gap to a massive 0.074 of a second from Henry! Third place went to Schmidt a further 0.411 behind.
At Morgan Park, we can expect more of the same and the lead will change numerous times between each corner let alone every lap. The outright speed may be low compared to the other classes but as can be read in the results the action is spectacular with hardly time to take a breath between all the “oohs” and “ahs” that seem to fill the air during every race.
Make sure you do yourself a favour and take the time to have a look at them on track, then wander the pits and be amazed at how young and diminutive these baby-faced assassins are as they chase their dreams of one day being a national and world champion. For some the future is so bright that they will need quite a few pairs of shades!
Preview written by Mark Bracks, imagery by Action Sports Photography Australia
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