DALE WOOD remains the king of Adelaide, sweeping to back-to-back Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia round victories at the VAILO Adelaide 500 in a dramatic dash that concluded the 2024 season on Sunday. 

Wood dominated the season finale’ to claim the Equity One Professional class round win over Jackson Walls and Dylan O’Keeffe, while Adrian Flack won the SP Tools Pro-Am battle over Matt Slavin and Stephen Grove.

The Connected Spaces / EBM driver becomes the fourth different round winner of the year, joining Harri Jones, David Russell and Bayley Hall as winners in 2024 – twelve months after he claimed his previous most-recent win.

The dramatic sprint had everything happening seemingly all at once from the outset; David Russell pitting at the end of the formation lap with driveline issues aboard his TekworkX Porsche.

Wood made the best start and led clearly into turn one, while Jackson Walls edged out Dylan O’Keeffe in their fight for third in the overall championship.

That lasted one lap when O’Keeffe dived down the inside of Walls at Turn nine on the second lap, putting him second in the race and provisionally third in the championship. The pair battled hard over the next several laps before the GWR Australia driver could entrench himself in third.

Furious racing unfolded in the fight for second through to the bottom half of the top 10, with Angelo Mouzouris, Bayley Hall, Glen Wood and Harri Jones all in the mix, while further back Clay Osborne and Nash Morris were punching on for spots in the back half of the top-10.

Further back, Stephen Grove spun at turn four aboard his Grove Hire car, dropping out of a competitive battle for second in the race with Anthony DiMauro – elevating the South Australian to the position.

The battles continued up front however on lap seven the race would come to a premature end, as first Glen Wood and then Harri Jones crashed heavily at Turn Eight.

Wood clipped the inside barrier at the corner while Jones, who was less than a car length behind entering the corner – having been passed by Wood a lap earlier – understeered wide and also hit the concrete hard.

The race was brought under the control of the Safety Car and then ultimately Red Flagged on account of the damage to the Turn 8 concrete barriers.

Both Jones and Wood were checked and released by the medical teams following the incident.

The final results had Wood claiming the victory, the 20th of his career. O’Keeffe’s fighting second saw him secure third in the championship while Jackson Walls narrowly missed out. Mouzouris just missed the round podium overall in a strong weekend for the Sonic racer, while Bayley Hall was fifth.

With results going back one lap prior to the incident, Glen Wood was classified sixth ahead of Jones, with Nash Morris, Clay Osborne, and Macros Flack completing the top-10.

In Pro-Am, Flack claimed the final race of a dominant season over DiMauro and Dean Cook in third.