Madsen in pursuit of his maiden WSS trophy
Albany will play an integral part in deciding the 2018-19 World Series Sprintcars championship as Kerry Madsen, Steven Lines and James McFadden lock horns on Saturday night, Cameron Newbold reports.
Four-time national champion Kerry Madsen will chase an elusive piece of silverware when Albany plays host to the first round of the western swing this Saturday night, as the World Series Sprintcars title race enters the final fortnight.
Albany’s Attwell Park Speedway will roar into action with round 8 of the national series, attracting some of the biggest names in Australian sprintcar ranks.
Madsen is a four-time national champion and has 24 career World Of Outlaw round wins to his name plus a stack of other blue-ribbon races Australia wide.
However, the 47-year-old has never lifted the trophy as WSS champion but leads the 2018-19 series heading into the final three rounds.
Albany will hold plenty of significance in the race for the title this season as Madsen holds a slender eight-point lead over South Australian and former WSS champion Steven Lines.
The pair have had a terrific battle in WSS rounds this season with Madsen capturing the series lead at Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway in January before things headed west.
Madsen, one of 10 contracted WSS drivers making the trek to Albany, has three rounds to claim his first-ever overall title with the final two events at Perth Motorplex next weekend.
Now driving for WA-based team Krikke Motorsport, Madsen (1922) will be brimming with confidence having won the SA title held in Whyalla at the weekend.
No stranger to competing in Albany during the five previous rounds held at the clay banked track, Madsen finished on the podium in the inaugural visit back in 2012.
Lines (1914) won the WSS title in 2013-14 and returns to Albany where he has won two feature races previously.
Not a contracted driver, Lines and his Horrell Motorsport team made the decision to travel to WA as they chase the major WSS prize.
Four-time WSS champion James McFadden is the other driver central to the final three rounds of the title race.
McFadden has won the series in the past two seasons and sits third on 1796 points but has a formidable record with Monte Motorsports.
In other news, Darren Mollenoyux will jump in to drive the Diamond Bay Motorsports No.26 in Albany on Saturday night.
This team has tasted success at the venue previously with Ryan Farrell in the seat. A bumper crowd came to Attwell Park Speedway last year, with brilliant two and three-wide racing thrilling those in attendance before rain forced the event to be washed out midway through.
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