After an incredible rookie season in 2025, Quinn Racing returned to The Bend Motorsport Park for the opening round of the 2026 South Australian Motor Racing Championship. With a year of experience behind us and a new partnership with Excel Garage, we'd spent the off-season working hard to improve both the car and our performance. This was our first opportunity to see whether that hard work had paid off. Following Friday's practice sessions, we were feeling confident heading into Saturday morning's qualifying. However, with Circuit Excel SA being one of the most competitive categories in South Australian motorsport, we knew that even the smallest mistake could be costly. And as we were about to discover, our first race of the season would be anything but straightforward.
With qualifying scheduled for 8:30 am, there was little time to settle into the morning before heading onto the circuit. Our strategy was simple: find another car to draft behind, establish a competitive lap time and then push for a faster lap. At The Bend, the aerodynamic slipstream from another Excel can be worth as much as six-tenths of a second per lap, making it an important part of qualifying. Unfortunately, our plans quickly unravelled when Cooper Harris suffered a mechanical failure, leaving his car stranded in the gravel and bringing out the red flag. With the session running to a fixed schedule, the delay left us with enough time for just one flying lap. To make matters worse, a mistake at Turn 10 on the out-lap left Cameron without another car to draft behind. What followed was a rather scrappy qualifying effort, missing several apexes and struggling to put together a clean lap. Despite the mistakes, we managed to qualify 11th on the grid, a surprisingly encouraging result considering how much time we felt we'd left on the table.
Starting from 11th, our immediate goal was to get away cleanly and avoid the mistakes that had plagued our race starts during the previous season. Despite lining up on the less favourable side of the circuit, we managed a respectable getaway, although Isaac Sparks made an excellent start and slipped past us into Turn 1. The opening laps were incredibly competitive, with the field tightly packed and drivers searching for opportunities wherever they could find them. An early battle between Ben Gallia and Magnus Paul opened the door for an opportunistic overtake, but our progress was nearly undone by a missed gear change. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last time we'd have trouble finding a gear. On the following lap, another missed shift cost us two positions, undoing much of our early progress. Circuit Excel gearboxes can be notoriously difficult to shift, with cable adjustments and mechanical wear making precise gear selection challenging. Nevertheless, these were mistakes we needed to eliminate if we wanted to progress further up the field.
Despite losing ground, we had enough pace to quickly catch the cars ahead and rejoin the battle. While fighting Ben Gallia for position, Cameron used the slipstream along the main straight to launch an attack into Turn 1. The two cars made contact on the corner exit, with the impact striking the left rear wheel of our Excel. Although there was no obvious bodywork damage, something was immediately wrong. The impact had significantly altered the rear wheel alignment, leaving the steering wheel crooked and the car behaving unpredictably through the corners. While the damage made some left-hand corners manageable, the car now struggled badly through right-hand turns and became particularly unstable during direction changes. It was incredibly frustrating, especially knowing we had the speed to fight with the cars ahead. With no opportunity to repair the damage during the race, the only option was to adapt our driving style, manage the handling issues and continue pushing towards the finish.
As the race progressed, Cameron gradually adapted to the car's unusual handling characteristics and began closing back in on the pack. After briefly losing another position to Ben Gallia, we managed to reclaim it with a clean move under brakes into Turn 1. Further ahead, battles between Magnus Paul and Isaac Sparks were slowing the group, giving us an opportunity to close the gap. Despite the damaged suspension geometry, we were able to take advantage of the slipstream and work our way back into contention. In the closing laps, a mistake from Magnus opened the door for Isaac, allowing us to join their battle. We eventually managed to slip past Isaac using the draft from Magnus's car, but with the chequered flag approaching, there wasn't enough time or pace left to gain another position. After a race filled with mistakes, mechanical frustrations and close battles, we crossed the finish line in 11th position, exactly where we'd started.
Our first race of the 2026 Circuit Excel SA season certainly wasn't the cleanest performance, but there were plenty of positives to take away from the weekend. Despite a compromised qualifying session, missed gear changes and significant handling damage, we still managed to finish 11th in a highly competitive field.
More importantly, the improvements made during the off-season were already showing promise. The car had competitive pace, and there were opportunities to move further up the order if we could eliminate some of our mistakes.
A huge thank you to the crew at Excel Garage for their continued work preparing the car, and to our sponsors and supporters for making another season of racing possible.
With Race One completed, we still had two more races to come at The Bend. The challenge now was to repair the damage, sharpen up our driving and see what we could achieve over the remainder of the opening round.
The 2026 season was officially underway, and there was plenty more racing to come!
