Stewart sizzles to Albany victory in final round of Speedweek

American Shane Stewart powered to his first feature race victory at Attwell Park Speedway, leading from start to finish to record a comfortable win in the final round of the USA v WA Speedweek Series on Saturday night.

The professional Sprintcar driver from Indianapolis won round 3 of the series in Bunbury and brought that form to Albany where he won a heat race, claimed to pole shuffle to start the final from position one and then coasted to victory in front of a strong crowd.

Jumping straight to the lead at the drop of the green flag, the World of Outlaws star was never troubled in clean air and had to survive two restarts during the 30-lap feature.

He crossed the line 3.477 seconds ahead of WA young gun Callum Williamson while USA veteran Bud Kaeding finished third, his best finish of the four-leg Speedweek tour.

Stewart recorded the quickest lap of the final and said it felt good to be in victory lane for a second time on Australian shores.

“I knew the start was every-thing,” Stewart said post-race.

“The way the track raced, it was kind of dirty and a little bit hard to get a hold of.

“Like in the heat races, once we were strung out (it was) kind of hard to gain position on some-body, so I knew (the) start was important. We were able to do that and maintain good lines and it worked out well.”

Stewart has had two previous visits to Albany in a sprintcar, finishing fifth in the World Series Sprintcars round in 2013 and seventh in the WSS feature in 2012.

Williamson showed terrific pace all night, qualifying second quickest and winning heat two while Kaeding won the final heat of the night and withstood an early challenge in the final to round out the podium.

A small field of just 10 cars made the trip to Albany for the final round of the USA v WA Speedweek Series, which was won by Jason Kendrick for the second straight year.

Kendrick won qualifying and appeared set to be a big challenger in the feature before trouble struck in the pole shootout.

He did not take part in the shootout and his team changed an engine before the final, where Kendrick came out and ran fourth to win the series by a slender eight points.

The third American driver Harli White lasted just nine laps and was forced to retire from the race with a broken front end while Andrew Priolo was disqualified not long after.

In the support divisions, Paul Bowman won the street stock final and the junior sedan feature race was taken out by Hope Batchelor.

In a drama-filled night for the production sedans, Aydan Trewern was relegated on two occasions after winning the first two heats and then got a flat tyre in heat 3.

Trewern bounced back to win the feature, which had a red-light stoppage after Clinton Theyer made heavy contact with the concrete wall in the main straight.