Things didn't quite go to plan in the final round of Dave Sieders' consistently strong season in the Australian V8 Ute Racing Series, but the Yarramundi native did enough on the street circuit at Sydney Olympic Park from December 5-7 to finish the competition in outright second place.
His 10th place finish for the round saw him finish with 881 points, 42 ahead of third placegetter and Holden driver Jesse Dixon.
But he couldn't catch series winner, Ford's Kris Walton, who led him by 63 points going into the round and finished it on 959 points.
It was Sieders' third series runners-up title in the last four years.
"That's another one that's got away from us," the former Winmalee High School student said, "so it's a bit disappointing but we are definitely proud about the fact that we've never finished outside of the top five."
The 30-year-old driver qualified his FG Ford V8 ute on the second row on the grid for race one but was punted mid-race into a tyre barrier by Ryan Hansford - who was penalised post-race - and got stranded in the middle of the pack, finishing 15th.
It was a stroke of bad luck as Walton had stalled on the start line, presenting a rare opportunity to earn vital catch-up points.
Missing out on the Top 12 inversion for race two sealed Sieders' second place for the series as Walton was moved to start from third on the grid, leaving Sieders spending the race battling George Miedecke and Craig Dontas, eventually finishing 12th.
The final race saw Sieders start from 13th and after another race-long battle with Miedecke and Dontas, he again finished 12th.
"We knew we were a long-shot (to win the series) coming into this round, but things started to look like they were going to swing our way at the start.
"Then our luck swung against us and we weren't able to finish the year off how we would have liked.
"The Sydney track is a tough place to get past people and when you've got two strong Holden drivers like Craig and George in front of you who have better drive out of the corners, all you can really do is just position yourself to take advantage of any mistakes.
"We have a bit of work to do before the 2015 season starts in February - and working out how to get this string of bad luck to swing around would be good."
Sieders' second place helped earn the Sieders Racing Team the 2014 Australian V8 Ute Racing Teams Championship.
The team's Andrew Fisher won the Masters award, while Bradley Packham won the Top Gun award for excellence in engineering.
