After chasing race leader Newton, who was the form driver of the night, and beginning to close on him in the 20-lap feature race, Barnes, who had started from position four, was gifted the lead on lap seven, when Newton suffered a flat right front tyre, pulling into the infield and prematurely ending what had looked to be a successful night, after having jumped to the lead from the drop of the green.

A composed Barnes managed to complete the feature race without incident to take a comfortable win in his first appearance back with the class in two years ahead of Wayne Faulkner, who had started on pole, and Bruce Irvine, who was thrilled to pick up the final spot on the podium in third.

Aside from Newton, the other hard-luck story of the night was Canberra’s Jacob Fripp, who displayed strong form early on in the night with a second-place finish in his opening heat race, before being plagued by mechanical issues which brought his night to a premature end, along with Dennis Richardson, who also suffered a DNF in the feature race due to a flat right-rear tyre.

Newton dominated heat-race action earlier in the night, coming away undefeated with three wins under his belt from as many starts, while Barnes admittedly had a slow start, but still managed to come away with two third-place finishes and a second.

Starting from the rear in the inverted top-six Dash, Newton powered his way through the field to a second-place finish behind Faulkner, whose Dash win was the highlight of his night, securing him a pole-position start for the feature race. Richardson rounded out the top-three finishers, while Barnes, who had struggled to find his way through from the rear of the field, came home in fourth.

Making up for it in the feature race, Barnes found speed on the bottom of the race track, sticking to this line and showing good pace while hunting Newton in the early stages, before going on to take the chequered flag.