{"id":948545,"date":"2026-11-01T08:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/948545\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T08:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:58:13","slug":"first-lap-melee-puts-todd-hazelwood-title-chase-on-back-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/948545\/","title":{"rendered":"First-lap melee puts Todd Hazelwood title chase on back foot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"1130\" height=\"636\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Trans-Am-Sandown-Race-3-Crash-e1793509982327.png\" class=\"sc-hero-img\" alt=\"First-lap melee puts Hazelwood\u2019s title chase on back foot\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA four-car pile-up was triggered by Todd Hazelwood and Blake Tracey coming together on Lap 1. Image: Fox Sports<\/p>\n<p>Herne (#29 Chevrolet Camaro) sealed the round victory with yet another win, leading home Blake Tracey (#5 Ford Mustang) by 2.1s, with James Moffat (#34 Camaro) in third.<\/p>\n<p>With Hazelwood handed his second DNF of the season, Herne heads into the final round next weekend with a 76-point advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Hazelwood remains mathematically in the hunt, however it will be a tall order to claim his third consecutive championship.<\/p>\n<p>Ben Bargwanna (#97 Mustang) capped off a solid weekend in fourth, while Lachlan Evennett (#8 Camaro) rounded out the top five.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1051649 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2026-SpeedSeries-R6-MotorcraftMustangCup-Friday-SpeedShotsPhotography-049-e1793510062870-1200x800.jp.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Nathan Herne dominated Race 3 of Trans Am in the hunt for his third championship. Image: Speed Shots Photography<\/p>\n<p>Hazelwood ran side-by-side with Tracey through Turn 2, with the pair coming together through the switchback to Turn 3, damaging the reigning champion\u2019s suspension and taking him out of contention.<\/p>\n<p>The pair coming together stacked up the field, causing a multi-car incident on the exit of Turn 3 and drawing the safety car.<\/p>\n<p>Jarrod Hughes and Tom Davies came together, with Harrison Sellars being spun off Davies\u2019 front bumper.<\/p>\n<p>Cody Brewczynski made heavy contact with the spinning Sellars, while Davies bounced across in front of Jack Smith and Tyler Cheney, leaving all four cars with front-end damage.<\/p>\n<p>Sellars brought his car back to the pit lane alongside Hughes and Cheney, while Brewczynski was out on the spot.<\/p>\n<p>Davies was forced to pull over on the pit straight after the restart with the bonnet propped up in front of the windscreen.<\/p>\n<p>Further back in the pack, Smith was still in the wars, coming together with Jenson Teleskivi at Turn 9, pitching the rookie into a spin and collecting Cheney in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Isaac Demellweek (#36 Mustang) came home in sixth, ahead of Ayrton Hodson (#44 Mustang) in seventh, while Smith (#11 Camaro) was relegated to eighth after a penalty for a start procedure infringement.<\/p>\n<p>Des Collier (#63 Mustang) came home in ninth, while Teleskivi (#2 Mustang) recovered to 10th.<\/p>\n<p>The Trans Am Cup Series now returns for its season finale at the Sandown 500 on November 6-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A four-car pile-up was triggered by Todd Hazelwood and Blake Tracey coming together on Lap 1. Image: Fox&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,27558,9910,254712,85,97722,90050],"class_list":["post-948545","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-nathan-herne","tag-slot2","tag-speedseries","tag-sports","tag-todd-hazelwood","tag-trans-am"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948545","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=948545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}