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Its such a long wait,....thats the problem.
Driving around the Mount Panorama circuit is Utopia for any driver. Once again it is 12 months away. In some ways it is a good thing, (helps to forget the last 5 or so laps when the car was wounded and being attacked from all angles by the hoard) in another way, for the driving experience it is a long time. Still though if we were able to drive on it all the time then it wouldn’t be so enjoyable I suppose. Anyway enough dribble, read on…
2007 was an exceptional year for the Ford Performance Racing (FPR) team at Bathurst. Never out of the top 3 in any session, pole position and leading the race from the outset and at every change, memorable indeed. 2008 Bathurst was a much different affair, memorable sure, but for a whole raft of different reasons. Bathurst owes no favours to anybody or any team, even after going so close to closing the deal in 07. FPR knew that to come out on top in 08 we would have to have the best car and be the best team on the day. Both Frosty and I were pumped to do everything that we possibly could and the whole team had ticked the required boxes. Of course there were commitments to both Castrol and Orrcon in the lead up, and the celebration of Dunlop’s 120th Birthday, for which Frosty and I cut the cake. Mmmm…..chocolate mud cake.
Come Thursday, practice and finally the Mount Panorama itches were able to be scratched. This session is mostly about doing longish stints, working on the race setup and to give both drivers a run in the car. We had a couple of small handling issues, but nothing insurmountable. All looked good for Friday’s practice and qualifying session. As I was doing the majority of the setup on the car with more fuel on board, in readiness for the race, it was Frosty who would qualify the car. Therefore most of Friday was geared around the use of new tyres for Frosty to get his eye in for a big fast lap around the Mountain. I had a bit of a crack on a set of newish Dunlop’s first thing on Friday morning and it didn’t seem too bad. That said it was more of a challenge getting the car sorted than it was in 07, but we were making good inroads.
In the early sessions there were a couple of noticeable incidents. One involved Paul Weel and Chris Pither on Friday morning and the other Paul Radisich on Saturday morning when a throttle reportedly jammed on. Both were huge accidents that caused significant injuries to both. That said, both are recovering OK and should be back at their homes by the end of the week to recuperate.
Qualifying went to plan and it was around this session that things felt as though they were falling into place, particularly with the cars performance. It was the most competitive we had been and Frosty managed to put the car provisionally fastest before the Top Ten shootout on Saturday afternoon. The team went to bed on Friday night happy with the progress.
The first part of the morning session on Saturday was dedicated to having a run on light fuel load for both drivers. The session was somewhat cut short though by a couple of red flags, one involving Paul Radisich. After the session resumed, we pretty well gave Frosty a crack at a shoot out simulation before a bit of a race run with heavy fuel. At this point the car felt great and was competitive.
The shoot out was so close. Frosty was only half a tenth of a second ahead of Tanders lap at the second sector. We all knew how good GT’s last sector was, but that also happened to be our cars strongest sector all weekend as well. In the end though, it was Garth and Holden that took the spoils. A front row start was still exactly what we were after, so the whole team were ecstatic with the outcome.
While Castrol/Orrcon FPR Falcon had been honing in on what it required for Sundays big race, on the other side of the garage, both Luke Youlden and Dean Canto had been doing a sensational job in the Orrcon backed FPR falcon. Practice had gone smoothly with both recording good times. While qualifying was below their own expectations in 18th, they were both very confident of a good outcome on race day.
Race day Bathurst morning is always an early 5 am start. Warm up starts at 7.10am and it’s important to get a good brekky to fuel up for the long day ahead. The warm up did not go quite according to plan however. I was out first with a light load to warm up the Dunlop’s for Frosty to have a feel on heavy fuel load. That was the intention, but before any of that happened the engine developed a misfire. This cost us valuable time to get to the bottom of and we didn’t make it out for the rest of the session, having only completed an out lap. As per usual the whole FPR team took it in its stride and come race start everything was sorted out from the engine side. The lead up to the start of the race is a huge affair at Bathurst. There are hundreds of people on the grid for the biggest race of the year. Its one of the few races where there is an air of nervous anticipation.
The start went well, blasting off the line to lead the first few laps. Within two laps the car developed some understeer which was to remain for the rest of the stint. It was unusual and definitely not how the car had behaved at any point of the weekend. I actually thought something may have been broken. We pressed on as quickly as we could, but the car was incredibly difficult to drive like that. I pitted at lap 28 for a driver change and within two laps Frosty reported the same problem. At that point it looked as though it could be a long day in the saddle. The great part about out team is that if the chips seem a little down and against us, everyone fights tooth and nail to get back into contention and that is the story of the rest of the day. The TV may not have shown it, but we fought hard, changed the cars settings at every stop and strategized our way back into the fight.
We managed to avoid most of the dramas everyone was having with tyres, because we were staying away from the suspect kerbs that had been damaging the tyres. I don’t know if it was shown, but we even jumped in front of the Vodafone team after one of our stops late in the race, where we pitted at the same time as them. Unfortunately though, our car just did not have the pace to stay in front of them when Frosty jumped into the car. Still when the last stint resumed and I jumped back in, we were second and at that point the car felt good enough to finish on the podium and I was doing everything possible to stay in touch with Lowndes. The three late race safety cars really hurt us and with 5 laps to go, someone turned on the oversteer switch. The tyres in the space of two corners screamed ‘enough’ and after pushing on so hard with a ‘not so nice’ handling Castrol/Orrcon FPR Falcon we lost two spots to Murph and Courtney. To describe that feeling as gut wrenching would be an understatement.
History will show that Lowndes and Whincup went on to record their third successive win with Triple 8, from Murph and Jason Richards with third going to SBR’s James Courtney and David Bernard.
Meanwhile the Orrcon FPR Falcon of Luke and Dean went on to finish in 7th position. A great result for them which could quite possibly have worked out even better if not for a late stop to fix an overheating engine.
Fourth place for car 6 still netted a strong haul of points for the team and moved me into 6th position in the Championship while Frosty moved closer to the lead behind Jamie Whincup. 7th for car 5 also helped to extend our lead in the Teams Championship.
All in all not a bad result.
Indy on the Gold Coast is next in a couple of weeks and there is no tougher place on cars than up there. A good result could grab us another couple of places higher in the Championship and form up there last year was pretty good.
Until next time,
see you at the track.
Richo.
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