Back-to-back provisional poles in Practice for Walsh

Ash Walsh has completed back-to-back provisional poles in the two practice sessions for the Dunlop Series at the Coates Hire Ipswich 400.

The hometown hero topped the time sheets in both 40 minute sessions, with the series leader clocking the fastest time of the day in the latter with a 1min10.993.

After setting the pace for the series during its practice day, Walsh said he was confident the Infants Friend Falcon can maintain its lead heading into qualifying and race one tomorrow.

"We sort of tried a setup in the first practice that we never tried here before, knowing we still had a little bit to find and we tuned it up over the sessions and I was really happy with where it ended up," he told v8supercars.com.au.

"There are a few things we can make better and I think the track conditions are going to be a little bit different in the morning, being a lot cooler.

"I don't think we've seen Waters on green tyres then so he's going to be fast tomorrow morning, but I think we have every reason to think we will be able to fight for pole in the morning."

0.28secs separated Walsh from Eggleston Motorsport's Paul Dumbrell, who sits a close 47 points adrift in the series standings.

As both competitors continue to vie for the series title, Dumbrell said he is looking for improvements in his Commodore come race day tomorrow.

"We're still a couple of tenths away from Ash who has been doing a really good job this weekend and all year, so we've got a bit of work to do but we're looking forward to it," he said.

"You can't wish bad luck upon anyone, so we just really want to go head to head [with Walsh]. We had a couple of really good battles at Winton and what not, but I don't want to see him on the side of the track not finishing because of someone taking him out.

"We're just looking for a good battle in the next couple of races."

Series contender Cameron Waters crossed the line as the second fastest in the first practice session of the day, but fell back in the order to 14th in the last session.

V8 Supercar favourite Steven Johnson completed the top three in the second session, followed by Aaron Russell and series-returner Tim Blanchard in fifth.

Andrew Jones, Paul Morris, Andre Heimgartner, Chris Pither and Gary Jacobson rounded out the top ten for practice 2.

The Dunlop Series takes to the track for their 250th race tomorrow, with race 1 of the Coates Hire Ipswich 400 kicking off at 3.25pm EST.

Qualifying for race 1 will commence at 10.35am EST.