After a disastrous opening race, David “Sideways” Sieders is hoping to woo Lady Luck before racing resumes at Hidden Valley Raceway today for Round 3 of the Yokohama V8 Ute Series – protected by Armor All.

The Western Sydneysider found his Nulon Oil Falcon experiencing the spectacle of V8 Ute racing first hand, finishing Race 1 in 22nd position after being tangled up in a number of ‘racing incidents’.

“Yesterday was definitely not a good day,” said Sieders, “I got a pretty good jump in Race 1, but I was swamped by a couple of Holdens going into the first corner and dropped back to tenth, and I guess that just set the tone for my race”.

“On Lap 2, I was pulling a switch-back move to take a spot back from Gary Baxter at turn five, when I got a serious shunt from behind that damaged my left rear and put the front right of my car into the Sage entry, and broke his steering rack, putting him out of the race.”

“Having dropped back to 16th position, and nursing a pretty damaged car, I had moved up the field a couple of spots when Yanis Derums locked his brakes at the same corner I sustained the earlier damage (turn five) that sent me spinning off the track, and rejoined the race in 27th position.”

Adding to the day’s woes, Sieders narrowly missed out on starting Race 2 from pole, as Series Leader Grant Johnson pulled number 18 from the reverse grid lotto, following his Race 1 win.

“I was making some good moves back up the field, and a couple more laps and I reckon I could have been in 18th, or better, but hopefully I can get another good start and I’ll try to stay with the Race 1 leaders and follow them through.”

Earlier in the day Sieders was confident of securing a good qualifying result, but was only able to set the eighth fastest time, after being held up by traffic on his flying laps.

“With the set-up we developed in practice, we were pretty happy with our times, especially since we were on tyres that had seen almost 60 laps, and the front runners were on greens.”

“Of course it’s up to the drivers to string together three quick sectors in one lap,” said Sieders, “but there’s also an element of luck in qualifying, which just wasn’t with me today; I just kept coming across other cars at crucial points that slowed me down.”

Race 1 starts today at 10:35am (Central Time) and will be broadcast ‘live’ across the country on Network Seven at 12:30pm (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne), 11:30am (Adelaide) and 11am (Perth), with the final race of the day at 1:35pm.

“The guys have been working hard to get my car back into a strong race package overnight, and hopefully things will turn around for us today.”