BJR celebrates Pit Stop Challenge win among difficult Thursday at Bathurst
Brad Jones Racing will head into the second day of action at the Bathurst 1000 with questions to answer.
Thursday running for the four-car team wasn’t smooth sailing, with a crash for the #14 Camaro in the co-drivers session.
Dean Fiore locked up into the final corner and made contact with the tyre wall, the BJR crew are confident that the car will be repaired overnight.
In the first session of the day, Andre Heimgartner in the #8 R&J Batteries Camaro cracked the top ten, knocking out a 2.06.7993 to finish ninth.
Jaxon Evans was the fastest of the co-drivers in the second outing of Thursday, putting the SCT Motorsport Camaro 22nd, again with his crew running race simulations.
All drivers had found that their Camaros suffered from rear-end nervousness over the top of Mount Panorama.
Solving that nervousness will be the focus overnight as the team looks to have a stronger Friday at the Mountain.
The team will look at that overnight before qualifying day of the Bathurst 1000, cars will be back on track tomorrow at 10:00 AEDT for Practice 3.
Super 2
Lochie Dalton’s first outing at Mount Panorama in a Supercar saw the Super2 rookie just outside the top ten in both practice sessions.
The talented Tasmanian finished 12th in the two practices ahead of qualifying tomorrow (8:55 AEDT).
Pirtek Pit Stop Challenge
The BJR crew started off the weekend on a high with both of the garages into the Pirtek Pit Stop Challenge finals.
The hours of practice at the workshop paid off for the squad, with the #8/14 team annihilating the Grove competition in their heat.
While the #96/4 tyre changes took a narrow victory over Triple Eight, locking out an all BJR final and securing the Golden Rattle Gun for the fifth year in a row.
In the end, the #8/14 team took out bragging rights with a narrow win.
A rousing rendition of Albury Wodonga went up in the garage as the $20,000 cheque arrived, promised to the team’s Christmas function.
Supercars results
Practice 1
P9 - Andre Heimgartner R&J Batteries Camaro
P24 - Bryce Fullwood Middy's Electrical Camaro
P23 Macauley Jones/Jordan Boys Pizza Hut Camaro
P27 - Jack Smith SCT Logistics Camaro
Practice 2 (Co-drivers)
P22 - Jaxon Evans SCT Logistics Camaro
P23 - Jordan Boys Pizza Hut Camaro
P24 - Dale Wood R&J Batteries Camaro
P28 - Dean Fiore Middy's Electrical Camaro
Super2 results
Practice 2
P12 - Lochie Dalton AWC ZB Commodore
Practice 2
P16 - Lochie Dalton AWC ZB Commodore
Supercars Quoteboard
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"I only did one practice session which is alright, pretty comfortable. So we're just trying to tune it up and make the car a bit better for tomorrow. From our side pretty happy day I was just getting used to the car."
Dale Wood
Supercars Co-Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"An interesting day. I think there is lots of potential. Still a bit of work in understanding these cars for me. So we did a race run which was quite good on a very used set of tyres, so it's good. I've had an understanding of what it's gonna be like. There's a lot of rubber on the track just due to the soft tyre we're running. So never seen anything like that around here. Look, we've come out unscathed. Not as fast as I would have liked, but plenty of things there for us to work on."
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Our first session we were just doing race run stuff, working up on it. And fortunately, Deano had a little mishap. The boys are getting that fixed up now. Tomorrow we just start trying to go fast for quali and obviously this race is on Sunday and not today. So we've got some work to do, but the boys are in good shape."
Dean Fiore
Supercars Co-Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Yeah, that obviously wasn't in the plan. So I was sort of trying to get my head around where the braking limit was for the car because it's vastly different to what I'm used to around here and I did it in what I thought was a safe spot. But it ended up being a little bit too close to the wall in the end. It was not ideal obviously because we didn't get the laps that we need, but I will put that behind me and focus on tomorrow."
Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #4 SCT Logistics Camaro
"Today was positive in the end. We have gone the right way with the car with Jaxon. But I think as a group, we all need to move forward a lot. But it's Thursday and we're building to qualify tomorrow."
Jaxon Evans
Supercars Co-Driver, #4 SCT Logistics Camaro
"First time back here in 12 months so it's always exciting to do those first few laps, experienced a Gen3 car here for the first time. So pretty exciting. We ran through our test plan which was was quite good. Started to get more and more comfortable, make some changes and hopefully put us in a good position moving forward for the rest of weekend."
Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"The first practice session bit going on- it's a tough track here, but all ran smoothly which is good. It was positive. I feel like we've got a bit of work to do. I don't think the car is super stable so that's not overly confidence inspiring however, we'll make it better."
Jordan Boys
Supercars Co-Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"I got to go out for a few laps in the first one, which was good to get my eye in. The cars actually feel quite good here, like I was a little bit surprised, everyone had their doubts a little bit so it was really cool to get out there. Then P2 was a bit of a struggle for us. I think we just we've missed it by a little bit. So got some work to do overnight but it's the best part about having a really good crew, so we'll put our heads down and get something sorted "
Super 2 Quoteboard
Lochie Dalton
Super 2 driver, #43 AWC ZB Commodore
"My day was pretty good, we're just sort of building up to it. I think the car has pretty good speed. Just need to find a little bit everywhere and we should be pretty sweet. But the car is pretty good and I think we'll be sweet for tomorrow when we go qualifying."