Van Bremen Third In State Championship
MVB Racing posted Tuesday March 11, 2008.

Lilydale’s Mike Van Bremen survived a bruising weekend of Victorian Sprintcar racing at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway and Simpson Speedway to finish in a healthy third position in the Victorian Championship.

Leading up to the long weekend two night event, a lot of competitors lacked seat team, however Van Bremen’s appearance in mid February at Adelaide’s Speedway City for the Sprintcar Nationals kept the rust out.

“I narrowly missed making the final in that meeting, but I was glad I competed in it as it was over two nights and it kept the finger on the pulse, which helped on Saturday night as you could tell a few drivers were a bit rusty,” Mike said.

On Saturday night at Avalon Raceway for the sixth round of the Eureka Garages and Sheds Series and also the opening night of the Great Southern Showdown Victorian Championship, Van Bremen began brightly moving forward in his heats to record a second and third.

The Action Blast Cleaning / CSR Methanol V#6 Maxim was fourth highest on points leading into the top six time trial, but a poor two laps forced the ‘lanky Lilydalian’ to start the 25-lap $5000 to win final from position five.

At the end of the final, Van Bremen finished third and he regarded himself as “the best of the rest”.

“John Vogels (winner) and Grant Anderson (second) were very quick. The top six time trial cost us, it would have been great to start on the front row, in the end we were one row back to far and couldn’t chase down the leaders.

“We were the best of the rest and it was a good way to start the weekend, not only did we put ourselves in a position to win the Victorian Championship but we also closed in on Matty Reed in the Eureka Series points,” Van Bremen said.

For the seventh round of the Eureka Series and final night of the Great Southern Showdown Victorian Championship on Sunday night at the elbows up Simpson Speedway, Van Bremen was only 23 points behind Reed in the series battle.

It was a struggling night at Simpson for the MVB Racing team, with the setup hard too put a finger on.

“We totally missed the setup for the heat races, we spun around in heat one and got sent to the rear. Unfortunately there was a lengthy delay at the start of the heat and while we were waiting, the track changed but we didn’t make the appropriate changes.

“After the second heat where I failed to make any great impression, I decided to make some aggressive changes to the setup for a make or break effort in the final,” explained Van Bremen.

Van Bremen raced from 13th position to finish sixth, proving his decision of an aggressive setup worked.

“I said to the crew that it would be a long final with a few stoppages, that proved the case. We went with such an aggressive setup that I wasn’t even sure if it would work, luckily it did and we came forward,” he said.
The result gave Van Bremen third position in the overall Victorian Championship, but the result was not overly satisfying from Simpson as the Eureka Series battle between Reed and Van Bremen had extended out to over 100 points again.

“To head into Simpson 23 points behind Matty Reed and now for that to be out over 100 again is disappointing,” he said.

In an interesting twist, Reed also used Van Bremen’s spare 372 motor over the weekend, but Van Bremen says he does not see it as a long-term arrangement between the two mates.

The next meeting for MVB Racing will be the 2008 Easter Sprintcar Trail.

Supporting the MVB Racing team for 2007-2008 are Action Blast Cleaning, CSR Methanol, Speedway Motors and National Rod Ends.

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