For Round 12 of the Season 2 IRacing V8 Supercars Americas series, we headed to back to Australia.  Marlon also elected to bring his new chassis which featured next season's livery.  

 

With it being the championship deciding week between Shaun Kelly and Marlon McMullen, you know it was going to be an exciting race.

 

With Phillip Island in the past not being one of Powerbond Racing Team most successful tracks, Marlon was on a mission to change that this season.  With Curtis starting in 3rd and Marlon starting in 6th anything was possible.

 

As the flag dropped the field sprung into action.  By turn 1 a slight incident between Chad and Beau Cubis resulted in Marlon picking up the scraps and pouncing on one position.  As the race panned out over the next few laps, Curtis hot on the heels of Shaun Kelly did all he could to try and chase down the fast TT-R driver.  Unfortunately for Curtis, Shaun slowly started to pull away and develop a gap.

 

While Curtis was out alone in clear air, Marlon was keeping a vigilant watch on the battle developing between Chad and Jake Burton.  Once Chad slipped down the inside, Marlon tried to follow but unfortunately was too far back to pounce.  But Marlon didn't have to wait long as Jake made a slight slip up coming onto Gardener straight, resulting in him losing control spearing across the front straight sideways, as Marlon just sat there bewildered what to do.  Using his many years of experience, Marlon realised this could be a race ending moment.  So he closed his eyes and prayed for the best...  One second later, he emerged in 4th position while Jake somehow managed to salvage a 220km/hr tank slapper with a minor scrap on his car.

 

As the race continued on everyone started to pit, but not Marlon and Curtis.  They elected to stay out an extra x2 laps which would end up being the wrong decision as they needed to take more fuel than required.  By taking an extra x5L than they needed to they, Curtis lost 2nd and dropped back to 4th, while Marlon lost 4th and went back to 5th, nearly losing another position to Beau Cubis.

 

Curtis quickly managed to slip by Jake, while Marlon tried his best to chase down a 7 second gap to Jake.  Over the next 20 laps, it was quiet, which is good in motor racing.  Marlon managed to chase down the gap to Jake and closed it to within 1 second, while Jake also closed down the gap to Curtis, with Curtis having a 1 second buffer.  By lap 40, the x3 cars were separated less than 1.8 seconds with each driver hoping to make a last minute position.  

 

As the boys came through the final corner, Curtis managed to hold off Jake and finished in 3rd while Marlon managed to come home 5th at one of his bogey tracks.

 

With Shaun taking the win and with Marlon finishing in 5th position, Marlon finishes the Iracing V8 Supercars Americas series in 2nd position just 81 points shy of Shaun Kelly.  With x2 titles and now a 2nd position etched next to his name, you can be sure Marlon will try and make a come back in Season 3!

 

1st: Shaun Kelly   

2nd: Chad Chastain

3rd: Curtis Chippeway

4th: Jake Burton

5th: Marlon McMullen

 

Fastest Lap: Shaun Kelly 1.32.045