Challenging Sunday for BJR in Surfers
A top ten finish for Bryce Fullwood highlights Race 26 for Brad Jones Racing as the other three cars suffer misfortune.
Middy’s Electrical’s Fullwood pulled together another stunning recovery drive to come back from a less than ideal qualifying position (19th) to record 10th in the Sunday race of the Gold Coast 500.
Fullwood had pace throughout the race and alongside engineer Phil Keed, the pair were able to take advantage and move forward throughout the 85 lap affair.
While Andre Heimgartner ran roughly around Fullwood in the race, a bold strategy call to pit the R&J Batteries driver with 8 laps to go and a penalty for contact with Todd Hazelwood, meant the kiwi ultimately finished 17th.
The 96/4 garage suffered from yet another heartbreak, with Macauley Jones an innocent bystander in a lap 1 incident.
Jones was taken out in the tailend of an accident between two other cars in an impact that knocked the throttle body of the Pizza Hut Camaro.
The #96 driver was forced to retire without completing a lap.
Jack Smith in the SCT Logistics Camaro also suffered damage in that same Lap 1 incident as he tried to pick his way through.
He sustained some damage which really hurt his race from there.
The #4 Camaro finished in 19th after serving multiple penalties for kerb hops.
Heimgartner remains sixth in the Drivers’ Championship but the gap back to seventh has closed to just a single point.
While Fullwood moved up a spot to ninth in the standings.
The 8/14 crew also retained third in the Teams’ Championship heading into the final round.
The crew will head back to base in Albury now before making their way to the final round on the streets of Adelaide (23-26 November).
Supercars Quoteboard
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"A bit of a struggle today just couldn't quite get qualifying together and then write to sit down the back end is a bit of a battle. I learned a bit with set up and different stuff but unfortunately the race didn't quite pan out the way it should have been."
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Really good day here for us today. We didn't qualify that well unfortunately. We qualified 19th which definitely was gonna make the race hard. But we had a really fast race car and through some good strategy and some really good lap speed, we were able to make our way up to 12 across the line. And then with a couple extra penalties that were handed out from overuse of kerbs, we were promoted up to 10th. Really productive day. Especially after yesterday, we moved forward a spot in the Championship, which after yesterday, I really wasn't sure we were going to be able to do this weekend. So all smiles for now."
Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #4 SCT Logistics Camaro
"Another rough day today. The kerbs really were the story of the day. Got a few kerb strikes in qualifying this morning and a couple of people ran off so it was very messy qualifying. Didn't really get the laps we needed. The race I kind of had okay pace and we were going along alright. And yeah, unfortunately just got too many kerb strikes and ended up with penalties which more or less took us out of the race. So yeah, it's a shame."
Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Struggled a little bit in qualifying. Felt like we had okay speed but made a mistake there and sort of paid for that in the start of the race. Sort of got caught up in an accident in front of me that left me with nowhere to go. Which is really unfortunate and then the throttle jammed open which I think was kind of what stopped us getting back to the pits. That's pretty frustrating seems to be a bit of a feature, but an unfortunate feature. One more round to go at Adelaide and we just hopefully can piece it together and go again."