By the end of Saturday the skies around Benalla and Winton were looking rather ominous and lo and behold  during the evening the heavens opened and the rain remained fairly consistent until the morning.

In the lead up to the 11am start the weather was patch but then appeared to break and the track started to dry however only half an hour before the scheduled start of the race the rain came down in torrents and the track was (and in-field) was well and truly soaked.

The cars commenced their rolling start with Pagonas leading Youlden into turn 1.  Evan Daley running in 4th misjudged the tricky conditions and tagged the rear of the G & H Aluminum car of the 'two Darrens' spinning both cars into the infield

No major damage was sustained and both cars returned to the fray albeit over half a lap down on the leading pair. 

The rain had abated and their were varying levels of grip around the circuit.  Youlden over committed himself under brakes at end of the first lap and the Federal Tyres Exige gracefully slipped off the edge of the circuit leaving the United Telecommunications car of John Pagonas to lead the first lap by 16 seconds.

Youlden then set about trying to close the gap down until his first pit stop where he handed the car over to Sahu-Khan.  Pagonas pitted the lap after for the first of his mandatory 2 stops (Pagonas completed the race solo).

Some confusion in the Federal Tyres pit resulted in Sahu-Khan being called in after only 3 laps leaving Youlden not ready to resume driving duties (having only just got out of the car).  The decision was quickly made to allow Youlden to continue on to his last stint although he would be running close to the individual 'stint limit' of 25 minutes for any driver.  The team had lost a valuable 30 seconds in the stop.

Fortunately Youlden resumed the race in 3rd just ahead of Pagonas and did not lose a lap although he re-joined the race in 4th place.

Pagonas then pitted for his 2nd stop on lap 17 and reported an intermittent oil warning but chose to continue as he felt that it was manageable and rejoined the race ahead of Youlden.

With a drying track the scene was set for a fabulous run to the finish.

Pagonas was trying to drive at maximum speed without risking the engine and Youlden set about hunting him down.  Pagonas set his fastest lap of the race 3 laps from the end and Youlden set his fastest lap (and the fastest lap of the race) on his 27th and last lap.

Both drivers drove brilliantly in the tricky conditions with a number of 'power twitches' and on the last lap it appeared that the G&H Aluminum Exige might come into play as both cars were approaching it to put it a lap down.

Time ran out for the Federal Tyres Exige however crossing the line .33 seconds adrift of Pagonas.  The G&H Aluminum car did manage to stay on the lead lap to finish in 4th place.

Unfortunately for the Medina Apartments Exige of Daley / Stevens, Daley had exceeded the 'stint limit' by over a minute and after consultation with the clerk of the course the team was excluded from the results promoting Orchard / Laudenbach to 3rd place.

It was a thrilling race in that after 27 laps and 2 pit stops, 1st and 2nd were separated by less than half a second.  If this is an indication of things to come we are in for a cracker of a season.

Pagonas       100                        Youlden       100

1. =   Pagonas             180