{"id":690999,"date":"2026-05-24T06:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T06:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690999\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T06:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T06:52:21","slug":"national-news-johnson-returns-to-touring-car-masters-championship-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690999\/","title":{"rendered":"National news: Johnson returns to Touring Car Masters championship lead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/INS10111-e1779596018650.jpg\" alt=\"Johnson returns to Touring Car Masters championship lead\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSteven Johnson took the round win in Touring Car Masters to round out the Tasmania Super440 supports. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Hansford hit back following a tough start to the season to win Sunday morning\u2019s Race 2 on a drying track.<\/p>\n<p>The former series champion started in 10th position and charged through the field as the damp track slowly dried.<\/p>\n<p>Hansford led home Johnson, who led the way early on, with Adam Garwood rounding out the top three.<\/p>\n<p>As the high horsepower cars struggled for grip, Jordan Cox stunned in the Improved Production-spec Mazda RX-7, charging through the field.<\/p>\n<p>Cox raced through to fourth spot before the safety car was drawn when Tim Brook found the wall through the kink on the back straight.<\/p>\n<p>Brook emerged from the battered Commodore unscathed.<\/p>\n<p>The crash elevated Cox into the top three, which quickly became second place as Johnson struggled for grip on the restart.<\/p>\n<p>The fairy tale was short lived however, as the Mazda began to drop back down the order in the closing laps, eventually classified in 13th.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson fought back in Race 3 to take a hard-fought 70th championship race victory, battling through in the early laps.<\/p>\n<p>The former series champion led home Garwood and Hansford, who took third place after an enthralling late battle with Scott Cameron.<\/p>\n<p>Garwood led the way early on, relinquishing the lead at the halfway point when Johnson made a decisive move at the hairpin.<\/p>\n<p>Hansford battled to try and fight back into second place, but fell back into the clutches of Cameron in the closing laps.<\/p>\n<p>The race was largely incident-free, and ran without the intervention of the safety car.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Auddino made contact with the right rear of Cox\u2019s RX-7, appearing to pick up steering damage as a result.<\/p>\n<p>A tough weekend continued for Danny Buzadzic, who was forced to pit early to repair a loose front guard.<\/p>\n<p>In the late running, Buzadzic found himself spun at the hairpin.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson\u2019s consistency was enough to seal the round victory, coming away with two wins and a second place.<\/p>\n<p>V8 SuperUtes<\/p>\n<p>Cody Brewczynski took the win in Race 3, battling a damp track and a hard-charging Adam Marjoram.<\/p>\n<p>2024 champion Marjoram held on to second position, ahead of young gun Jack Westbury in third.<\/p>\n<p>Westbury benefitted from a late battle between Marjoram and David Sieders, which saw the reigning champion drop to fourth through the final corner.<\/p>\n<p>Aaron Borg recovered from an awful start, dropping from third to eighth, to round out the top five.<\/p>\n<p>Justin Ruggier was back after a rollover yesterday, with the Western Sydney Motorsport Hilux running without a front or rear windscreen.<\/p>\n<p>Ruggier\u2019s recovery lasted just three laps, as the wind caught the dashboard and propped it up, blocking the driver\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n<p>The former Aussie Racing Cars champion was forced to pit to have the dash taped back down, eventually classified in 19th position.<\/p>\n<p>The sole safety car was drawn for Rossi Johnson finding the gravel at the hairpin.<\/p>\n<p>Marjoram hit back to take the win in Race 4 to cap off the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>After starting in second place, Marjoram raced side-by-side with Brewczynski for half of the opening lap, seizing the race lead down the back straight.<\/p>\n<p>Westbury came home in second spot, with Brewczynski rounding out the top three.<\/p>\n<p>A mid-race mechanical issue for Sieders took him out of contention after battling for the lead early on.<\/p>\n<p>The safety car was drawn when rookie Ruben Dan found the gravel at Turn 4.<\/p>\n<p>Marjoram held the lead on the restart, and maintained a steady gap over Westbury to take the win and seal the round victory by just one point over Brewczynski.<\/p>\n<p>Tassie Tin Tops<\/p>\n<p>Josh Barwick braved tricky conditions to comfortably win Race 3 on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Barwick led home Mark Duggan in the Aston Martin Sports Sedan, with Ben Newman unchallenged in third place aboard the McLaren GT4 entry.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Carey came home in fourth in a quiet affair, while Ben Purtell recovered from a pair of off-track excursions to round out the top five.<\/p>\n<p>A single safety car was drawn when Steve Lord spun on the exit of Turn 3 and stopped sideways across the track.<\/p>\n<p>Simultaneously, Richard Hadolt spun on the exit of the final corner, however both cars were able to recover and continue.<\/p>\n<p>Under yellow flag conditions, Brad Sherriff pulled into the pit lane with an unknown issue, parking what was expected to be the fastest car in wet conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Barwick went back-to-back on Sunday to win a shortened Race 4.<\/p>\n<p>Purtell rocketed through the order to take second place, with his Nissan 180SX well suited to the dry conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Duggan rounded out the top three ahead of Newman and Carey.<\/p>\n<p>The race was red flagged just four laps in when Hadolt found himself upside down through the final corner.<\/p>\n<p>Hadolt\u2019s Torana came to rest on its roof, with the driver able to climb out under his own power.<\/p>\n<p>The race was suspended and ultimately declared during a lengthy clean up effort.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/250635\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/250635\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Johnson took the round win in Touring Car Masters to round out the Tasmania Super440 supports. Image:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85,337210,331042,328920,281364],"class_list":["post-690999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-steven-johnson","tag-tassie-tin-tops","tag-touring-car-masters","tag-v8-superutes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}