Victorian racer Jordyn Charge secured the opening night of the 2024 Chariots of Thunder Series at the Northline Speedway on Thursday night as he just edged out Matt Egel by .133 of a second in what was a dramatic way to start the three-night tournament. Going into the Series Charge had been the standout driver at the northern venue and his season dominance continued as he claimed the $10,000 winner’s cheque and the massive first placed trophy.

“I was losing power steering there about halfway through the race and I knew that someone would be coming so I just had to hang on there at the end. I don’t really know how I hung on, I just winged it, I was just hard on the gas, trying to keep it as straight as I could. I didn’t expect to be on the top step to be honest so all I can say is credit to tis team for giving me such a great car” added the winner shortly after the race.

For Egel it was this third consecutive runner-up finish in his northern campaign and in his words “second is getting pretty old!”.

The night started with Brock Hallett kicking off the 2024 edition of the Chariots of Thunder by pacing the 29-car field in qualifying with a lap of 11.424 edging out Daniel Harding, Jordyn Charge, Matt Egel and Ben Atkinson Jr.

The field was split into three heat races with Matt Egel, Tate Frost and Jordyn Charge all securing a heat win on what was a lightning-fast racetrack. Heat two saw only five cars complete the race after a massive start line incident saw Ben Atkinson Jr ride out a huge crash after contact with Daniel Harding. The accident also saw the front end torn out of the Mick Saller machine and Steven Loader roll his immaculate V10.

The format also saw a series of dashes and a B-main conducted to decide the A-Main starting line-up with Kale Quinlan and Trent Pigdon winning the B-Battles, Ryan Jones and Jordyn Charge securing the dashes, while Todd Moule, who rolled in his heat, Kale Quinlan, Mick Saller and Chris Harrison transferred from the B-Main.

Therefore, the starting line-up saw Charge, Egel, Hallett, Frost, Harding, Manders, McHugh, Jones, Sutherland and Brown on the first five rows.

As the green flag fell on the 30-lap final Matt Egel got the jump over the field and led the opening stanza of the race with Jordyn Charge, Brock Hallett and Kaiden Manders in pursuit. Just prior to halfway Egel lost the lead to Charge after getting trapped behind the lapped cars of Mick Saller and Chris Harrison.

Shortly after losing the lead Egel was relegated back to third by a hard charging Brock Hallett who then set off after the race leader. Just the battle up front was heating up the order up front changed dramatically as a major accident in turn four involved the leading duo. Unfortunately, Lachlan Cole spun and was collected by Scott Enderl and Todd Moule just as the leaders were approaching, with Hallett slamming into the rear of the stationary machine of Enderl. The impact destroyed the front end of the Q5 and ruptured the fuel cell on the S11.

The restart saw Charge pace the field ahead of Egel, Tate Frost and Manders but the order would change again a lap later as Frost hit the turn 1 wall and rolled.

That elevated Manders into third ahead of the Australian Champion Lachlan McHugh, who was having a relatively quiet night but found himself towards the front due to others misfortune. From this point the final six laps ran to the flag with Charge winning his sixth Northline Speedway A-Main event for the season ahead of Egel, Manders, McHugh and Daniel Harding.

South Australian’s Ryan Jones and Glen Sutherland were next across the line with Tim Farrell, Dylan Menz and Hayden Brown completing the top 10.

Information provided by Phil Michell Motorsport Media