TINT-A-CAR Racing’s Steve Owen has won the inaugural Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series race at Sandown to stretch his lead in the 2008 Championship points race.

The Holden Commodore drive was forced to concede to Dean Canto in the fight for pole position, but the Victorian launched off the line perfectly to lead the 29-car field into the first corner. He was never headed and took the chequered flag 2.04-seconds in front of Canto in the 15-lap event.

“I got a good run through the back markers and that eased the pressure and I could bring it home from there,” said Owen, who sampled the Jim Beam Falcon he will drive in the V8 Supercar endurance events during Championship Series practice on Saturday.

“Wakefield Park’s last round was our home track and things have worked out here better than we expected. Our engine isn’t the latest Paul Morris Motorsport unit, but it’s only two-tenths of a second slower up each straight than Russell Ingall’s car.

“We didn’t use all of our allocated tyres in qualifying because I didn’t think we could get to Dean’s pole position time so we kept some fresh ones for that race.”

Canto’s pole was his second in three rounds, however he was unable to claw back the margin to the Commodore once it took the lead.

“I got lots of wheelspin on the start and that was that,” he said.

“I dumped a second during the race by going deep into Dandenong Road Corner and then I got caught up in the lapped traffic.

“I’m getting more comfortable with the car and its geometry and setup. We had a test day before this round at Queensland Raceway and it’s starting to come good.”

Greg Murphy Racing’s Dale Wood made a flying start and finished third after qualifying fifth, while Howard Racing’s Karl Reindler backed up a career-best qualifying effort by finishing fourth, his highest result since joining the series at the beginning of 2008.

“I got a good start but we just aren’t fast enough in the first two or three laps and generating enough heat in the tyres to run with the top two,” said Wood.

Mack Trucks driver Jack Perkins suffered problems that sent him to the pits while sitting strongly placed in third. Having entered the round second in the series, the third generation racer managed to re-join but finished a lowly 26th and collected only a handful of championship points.

Reigning Carrera Cup champion David Reynolds was fifth clear of Jonathon Webb and Michael Trimble.

Tim Slade, who won the last Fujitsu Series round at Wakefield Park, was running seventh before a last lap spin dropped him to 11th behind Grant Denyer’s Summit Falcon.

The final two races of the Sandown round will be held tomorrow, Monday June 9, at Sandown.

Race 2 will feature a reverse grid format, with the top 10 finishers in today’s first race inverted on the grid. That moves Denyer and Jay Verdnik to the front row, with Race 3’s grid to be determined by the aggregate results of the first two races.