Adelaide, South Australia (March 2, 2018)– After making his first ever asphalt road race laps in an SST truck on the fast and technical temporary street circuit in yesterdays practice session; Scottsdale, Arizona driver Cole Potts withstood a serious charge by two of Stadium SUPER Trucks elite drivers to became the class of the field winning the opening round of the renamed Adelaide 500 in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Pole sitter Bill Hynes of Nazareth, Pennsylvania would pace the field to green for the 8-Lap sprint. Quickly jumping out to the early lead in the LIVE entry, Hynes would show the field around the circuit for 11-turns before Potts driving the HallmarkTrust.com truck would work his way around Hynes to the front from his second starting position.
Shortly after taking the lead Potts would receive pressure for the lead from Penola, South Australia driver Greg Gartner on Lap-2. However, the man on the move was Orange, California driver Robby Gordon working his way all the way into the third spot from the seventh starting position in his familiar bright orange SPEED Energy/ Toyo Tires entry.
As the leaders would begin Lap-3 carnage would break out behind them as the hornets nest of the trucks spinning and banging into each other would began to increase. As Potts and Gartner would race towards Turn-1 Gordon would hold the best seat in the house to potentially witness a great battle, as Gartner would stalk the Toyo Tire tracks of Potts waiting for him to miss his marks in the braking zone.
In typical Gordon fashion there was no time to sit back and watch, as he powered his truck into the corner past Gartner for the second position setting his sights on the bright green Potts trucks for the top spot.
Potts would hold off the hard charging Gordon for several corners in an impressive display of driving by the young Arizona driver in only his second SST start.
The yellow flag would fly over the circuit on Lap-4 as Singleton, New South Wales driver Toby Price, would snap his rear end housing in half ultimately sending his McDonald’s truck through the chicane out of control before pounding the outside retaining wall ending his run in today’s competition.
On the restart Potts would once again hold off a hard charging Gordon who would apply lots of pressure attempting to take over the top position. As Potts and Gordon battled out front Gold Coast, Queensland native Matt Brabham driving the DeVilbiss entry would work his way into the sights of the lead trucks and a podium finish working his way into the third position.
In a bonsai move Scottsdale, Arizona driver Arie Luyendyk Jr. would continue to make Lap-5 interesting as he would completely miss his braking point, and launch past Gordon Gartner, and Brabham into the second position for a brief second bouncing off Gordon and Brabham in the process.
Brabham would be the big winner in the process as he would settle into the second position, and set his sights on Potts for the lead. Gordon would become the big loser, as his truck would encounter significant damage ending his day early.
In a soft and easy pass in the corner Brabham would work his way past Potts for the lead. Things would not go much better for Potts as he would loose the handle on the Hallmark Trust truck coming to the completion of the lap.
As the white flag would fly for the final lap Matt Brabham would make a crucial mistake completely missing the corner allowing Potts and Gartner to get by.
After the race Brabham made it known that his radio had come loose, and was flying around in the cockpit. In the process of grabbing it would loose control and miss the corner.
This would allow Luyendyk to come back into the mix nosing his truck into the R & J Batteries truck of Gartner spinning him out, and out of podium contention.
The race for the second position would heat up tremendously as Luyendyk, Brabham, and Phoenix Arizona racer Jeff Hoffman would now all be gunning for the second position. As all three would beat and bang off each other, and the outside retaining wall loosing ground to the leader in the process.
In a an amazing display of driving Potts would cleanly drive away from the chaos directly behind him for second place en route to his first ever SST victory oddly enough in his first ever start on asphalt in any form of motorsports.
Luyendyk would hold off Brabham at the finish line for the second position, with Brabham rounding out the podium.
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