Nathan in action at Latrobe setting the one lap track record.
(Photo by Damon Kingshott)

Night 3 - Saturday 13th March 2010

Coming into the final night of racing, Nathan was leading the points tally ahead of Andrew Blackwell and Mark Carlin.  After some unfortunate penalties the night before Shane was 13th in points.  Nathan had some work cut out for him in his heat starting from the back of the field in 9th place.  Nathan settled into a groove and began his charge forward running around the outside of his rivals to advance to 3rd place across the finish line. Unfortunate for Nathan those few cars that were behind him in points finished well in their heats which left Nathan out of position 3 for the final. 

Shane had a tough heat starting from 6th place, as the top 6 raced door to door on a very fast race track.  Shane was able to advance one position to finish in 5th.  After four frantic heats of racing, Nathan had qualified from position 3 for the 40 lap final with Shane qualifying from 12th.

Andrew Blackwell was the top qualifier but opted to start out of position 2. Steve Price was then on pole with Macdonald in 3 and Wayne Ramsdale 4th.  The race got underway but the yellow lights come on soon after as the race start was brought on to soon which saw many cars not ready resulting in a few incidents leaving Glenn Pagel out of contention with damage.  The next start Nathan followed Steve Price through and was trying to settle into 3rd place when contact with Wayne Ramsdale on the first lap saw Nathan spin onto the infield with a bent lower control arm.  Nathan was bitterly disappointed qualifying so well and not given the opportunity to prove himself unable to complete one lap.  An incident free run for Nathan all weekend had ended in the race that counts.

It was all up to Shane to bring home a good result, and that he did.  After several crashes early on, Shane managed to stay out of trouble and gain a couple places to finish 5th, albeit battling a seized front wheel bearing which saw sparks flowing from the front of the QLD champions car.  An awesome result for the team in amongst a strong national title field. Andrew Blackwell won the title ahead of Steve Price, Aidan Raymont and Greg Worling.

Nathan did however come away with the official Latrobe Speedway lap record which he set on the first night of racing.  Shane and Nathan will now be trekking to Hobart Speedway this coming weekend to contest the Tasmanian State Title and will be aiming for a good result.

Macdonald Racing wish to sincerely thank the following sponsors for making the Tasmanian trip possible.

Toowoomba Steering and Suspension
Forbes Batteries
RCP Machining
Linmac Automotive

Night 2 - Friday 12th March 2010

After three heats of racing Nathan Macdonald leads the point score for the Australian Title with Shane back in 13th.  Nathan scored a 3rd, 3rd and a 1st in his heats after starting from positions 6,5 and 1 respectively.  Nathan leads Victorian Champion Andrew Blackwell and Australian Champion Mark Carlin by one point. 

Shane finished 4th in his first heat but was relegated back two positions to 6th for an alleged rough contact with Bryan Galley.  Starting from the rear in his next heat, Shane ran the high line to move into 2nd place across the finish line, but was again what seems to be unfairly penalised for contact with another car.  Which then put Shane back to 4th.  If Shane hadn't been penalised he would have been equal 2nd points with Andrew Blackwell.

With one more heat to go then the C, B and A-main will be on.  Shane and Nathan are hoping to transfer straight into the a main.

Both cars are in excellent shape with no damage, just with some minor checks and a wash and they will be right to go again.  Nathan also set an official lap record on his first heat.

Night 1 Practice - Thursday 11th March 2010

After everyone arriving safely in Tasmania, we were all set to tackle the Latrobe Speedway for the first time.  With Thursday night being the practice to allow Nathan and Shane to test out their set-ups.  After going out for their first run, both Shane and Nathan contemplated changing their diff ratios after hitting the rev limiter in both cars.  Deciding to leave it as they were and have a few more runs, the rev limiter was bumped up a little to get the maximum out of both cars. 

Nathan struggled a little through turns 3 and 4 but after a few minor adjustments the car was handling well.  Shane was happy with his car and went out in his fourth run to set the 9th fastest time of the night out of 51 cars with a time of 15.870. Nathan set his fastest time in his final run which was 4th overall with a time of 15.759. Nathan's time being only 0.12 of a second off the quickest time set by Greg Worling.  Victorian Champion Andrew Blackwell was 2nd and former Australian Champion Justin Drew in 3rd. 

To give you an idea of the competition, The top 40 cars were all within 1 second of each other and 0.25 of a second covering the top 10 cars.  With the cars just needing a wash today and a quick check over, Shane and Nathan are looking forward to the nights racing going into the event with a little confidence with both Brothers in top 10 for Practice.  Peter Gray from Toowoomba is also going well setting the 19th fastest time.

Shane and Nathan wish to thank everyone for their support, keep it up!