South Australian Dave Gartner claims second WA Super Sedan Title after holding out Pascoes in Mt Barker epic

Dave Gartner’s love affair with Mt Barker has continued, capturing his second WA Super Sedan Title at the venue on Saturday night. Gartner, who hails from South Australia, won his first WA crown at Les Gorman Park in 2015 and returned to the same track to again come away with the spoils. After nine qualifying heats, Gartner and fellow interstate competitor Matt Pascoe shared the front row for the 40-lap championship decider while defending WA champion Dustin Higgs started from position eight. There were several stoppages in the early laps, forcing several of the backmarkers to retire from the event. Gartner continued to lead the field away at the restarts and started to encounter lap traffic as Brad Pascoe pinched third place from Gary Higgs at the halfway point. On lap 23 Bryce Fisher caused the final stoppage of the race, slowing while running inside the top 10. The final 17 laps were a terrific contest as Gartner held off an almighty challenge from Matt Pascoe. Brad Pascoe then joined the two leaders as the laps wound down before Matt Pascoe tried to find a way around the outside of Gartner but the latter was just holding on. As the white flag came out with one lap to run, Matt Pascoe ran wide in the straight handing second place to his son Brad. Brad Pascoe tried to get past Gartner on the final lap but the veteran clung on to snare his second WA title by a mere 0.282sec. in front of a terrific crowd. Matt Pascoe was third ahead of Garry Higgs while Dustin Higgs made his way through the field to round out the top five. It was a ninth State title in Gartner’s super sedan career and he paid credit to the appreciative Mt Barker crowd post-race. A total of 21 drivers greeted the green flag for the title, which was just the second meeting the Mt Barker Speedway Club has held under lights. Earlier Gary Higgs and Brad Pascoe won two heat races while the other preliminaries went to Mick Nicola Snr, Gartner, Dustin Higgs, Zac Pascoe and Matt Pascoe.