On a night that saw persistent showers, wind gusts and lightning strikes in the sky the weather finally won out as the heaviest rain shower of the night swept across the track just as the Preliminary A-Main field pushed off on night 1 of the 2019 Australian 360ci Sprintcar Championship at the Kalgoorlie International Speedway. The front row was to have seen Victorian Tim Van Ginneken and defending National Champion Kaiden Manders on the front row with local Kalgoorlie racer Taylor Milling and South Australian Champion Dan Evans on the second line.

Earlier in the night six heats were conducted with the opening round of heats seeing the fastest cars from qualifying up the front while round 2 saw an inverted 4.

The opening heat race went the way of James Inglis with Tim Van Ginneken and Ben Butcher completing the top three. Heat two saw the biggest incident of the night with Liam Dowling and Ray Leonard made contact in turn one on the opening lap with both drivers riding out a big crash, ending the night for both competitors. The crash damaged the catchfence resulting in a lengthy delay for repairs. Kaiden Manders went on to win the heat in the vastly depleted field. The final heat of the opening round went to Mitchell Wormall.

The second round of heat races ran without incident as Tim Van Ginneken won heat 4 easily while AJ Nash and Dan Evans added their names to the heat winners list.

Therefore, the top 10 for the final was to have seen Van Ginneken, Manders, Milling, Evans, James Inglis, Mitch Wormall, AJ Nash, Ben Butcher, Tom Hooper and Matthew Iwanow line-up for the 25 lap Preliminary Final.

Points After Night 1:
Tim Van Ginneken 63, Kaiden Manders 63, Taylor Milling 58, Dan Evans 56, James Inglis 56, Mitch Wormall 56, AJ Nash 56, Ben Butcher 55, Tom Hooper 53, 47 Matthew Iwanow, Jamie Landrigan 47, Rob Watson Jr 41, Daniel Hartigan 41, Steve Adley 33, Callum Sweetman 31, Sam Borlini 30, Daniel Keen 22, Ray Leonard 13, Liam Dowling 11, Jacob Potts 9.

The 2019 Australian 360ci Sprintcar Title at the Kalgoorlie International Speedway continues on Saturday night.