JAMIE Maiolo struck the first blow of the Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series season by claiming the 30-lap feature race at the Perth Motorplex on Saturday night.
The Myalup Missile hardly put a foot wrong all night, first by winning his heat race and then by starting from P2 in the main event - that was part of the Shannons Powerpalooza that featured speedway, drag racing and burnouts in front of a healthy first night crowd.
Maiolo worked his way to the front early to set up a commanding lead and win the feature by more than 5.2 seconds from sprintcar rookie Tom Payet and Kye Scroop.
“The car felt good in the heat race, we were a little bit tight which was a good thing,” Maiolo said.
“We knew later in the feature race we didn’t want to touch it too much as the track would go away.
“The car was that good, we just kept running the top and we were only going to go to the bottom for lapped cars and that was it.”
Ben Van Ryt and Kaiden Manders were due to start on the front row but Manders was unable to get the #60 to fire up, elevating Maiolo from P4 to P2.
Jason Kendrick lined up on the second row, next to Scroop.
Kendrick’s chances took a dive early on when he spun the #11 on lap seven and by this stage Maiolo was looking the goods in the #99 machine.
On the restart Maiolo led away from Payet and Scroop with Van Ryt, in the 360ci powered car, back in fourth by this stage.
The race didn’t last long after the restart when an incident in pits bend gave Taylor Milling, Chase Karpenko and Jamie Landrigan an early night after all three came together and sustained too much damage.
Brad Maiolo had worked his way by the next restart and pushed hard in the latter stages, including on the last lap, to try and claim a podium finish.
Scroop’s #89 entry was smoking pretty hard in the last section of the race and he admitted after the race that he was struggling with engine temperature.
He was equal to the last lap dive by Brad Maiolo to hold on for third.
Payet, who came from P6, looked very comfortable in the #79, and took a comfortable second, although he admitted later on he had nothing for Jamie Maiolo who was too far in front.
Brad Maiolo held on for fourth from Shaun Bradford, Mitchell Wormall, James Inglis, Ben Van Ryt, Ryan Lancaster, Jason Pryde and Kendrick.
Jamie Maiolo won the first heat race of the season, taking the win from Kendrick and Inglis, while Manders claimed the second heat from Scroop and Brad Maiolo.
Pryde was the only driver to let officials know at the start of the night that he was playing his Joker card, doubling his feature race points for the round.
Each driver has until the January 12 round at the Motorplex to play their Joker card.
Round two of the Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series will be held at the Motorplex next Saturday night.
RESULTS
Heat 1: 1st Jamie Maiolo, 2nd Jason Kendrick, 3rd James Inglis, 4th Shaun Bradford, 5th Mitchell Wormall, 6th Jason Pryde, 7th Jamie Landrigan, 8th Ben Van Ryt.
Heat 2: 1st Kaiden Manders, 2nd Kye Scroop, 3rd Brad Maiolo, 4th Tom Payet, 5th Ryan Lancaster, 6th Taylor Milling. DNF: Chase Karpenko.
Feature: 1st Jamie Maiolo, 2nd Tom Payet, 3rd Kye Scroop, 4th Brad Maiolo, 5th Shaun Bradford, 6th Mitchell Wormall, 7th James Inglis, 8th Ben Van Ryt, 9th Ryan Lancaster, 10th Jason Pryde, 11th Jason Kendrick. DNF: Chase Karpenko, Taylor Milling and Jame Landrigan (all on lap 7). DNS: Kaiden Manders.
