After leaving Winton Raceway as the Precision National Sports Sedan championship leader, Ashley Jarvis is ready to do battle on his home turf at the Queensland Raceway this weekend.
In his second year of racing in the series, the 2017 national TA2 champion is confident he can keep his 750 horsepower Holden Monaro at the pointy end of the field after two podiums and a fifth place gave him outright victory against the likes of Tony Ricciardello, Jordan Caruso, and Steve Tamasi.
It’s the first time the category has raced at QR since 2019, and Jarvis is excited to have the championship lead to defend against the known heavy hitters.
“We’re feeling pretty confident actually, but at the same time, against the likes of Ricciardello, Caruso, and Tamasi in their big horsepower cars, and with QR being the four drag strips that it is, they’re going to be hard to beat,” Jarvis told AUTO ACTION.
“I feel like we have a great package, and though we mightn’t have a the grunt, the work that Tony [Gonn – chief engineer], and Warren and Colin [Smith – car owners] have done with tuning the Monaro means we’ll be competitive, and we’re bringing some upgrades.”
After taking a P2 on merit of speed at the final round in Sandown in 2022, Jarvis feels like the tide has turned for himself and the #44 MR Automotive team.
“With the car that we’re in, we know it’s not a top three contender in outright lap speed, but we do know that it’s a very reliable package.
“If you asked me at the start of the year if I would have expected a round win…absolutely, and although we might not be contending for race wins, we just have to circulate in the top three to five, and we’re in with a big chance to keep it rolling.”
And how does Jarvis rate his round win against his past achievements like a TA2 championship and Bathurst endurance podiums?
“The actual enormity of it didn’t sink in for about a week. When you look back on the history of the series going back 30 or 40 years, you get Brock, the Johnson’s, Moffat, Richards… they all won Sports Sedan rounds, so it’s pretty cool to think of it like that.”
Round two of the National Sports Sedan series heads to QR on August 4-6.
