Double top ten finish highlights BJR’s Saturday in Townsville

Brad Jones Racing enjoys a dual top-ten finish for the 8/14 garage in Race 16 on the streets of Townsville.

Andre Heimgartner in the R&J Batteries Camaro charged through from 17th to finish seventh, dicing for a spot in the top five just before a Safety Car was called with 20 laps to go in the 88 lap affair.

Heimgartner lost out to those who were on fresher rubber in the final portion of the race, with team-mate Bryce Fullwood (#14 Middy’s Electrical Camaro) just behind him.

Coming across the line in 8th, Fullwood made early strides in the 250km race, jumping into the top ten from his grid position of 11th.

Macauley Jones meanwhile had a largely positive race keeping with the pack fighting on the edge of the top ten, finishing 16th.

Jack Smith in the SCT Motorsports entry unfortunately was caught up in an incident early in the race, through no fault of his own.

Smith sustained damage to the #4 Camaro which made his afternoon from that point quite difficult.

The field effectively resets for Sunday with another 88 lap race, qualifying for which starts at 10:00am AEST.

Super2

Lochie Dalton in the #43 AWC Commodore was caught out by a late red flag in the qualifying session, which meant he wasn’t able to get his flying lap in.

Starting out of position 18, Dalton capitalised early showing some serious speed and climbing up a number of spots.

Unfortunately it did come undone with a massive lock-up, Dalton then had to come to pitlane and finished 18th.

Qualifying for tomorrow’s Super2 race commences at 9:35am AEST.

What our drivers had to say…

Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"Not a bad finish from what this morning was, so just need to tidy up some qualifying things for the car for tomorrow. But yeah, really solid day for BJR as a whole with two cars in the top ten. Now we want to be fighting for the podiums, and we almost were if it wasn't for the safety car. And that's overall pretty positive just need to try and qualify further up, and then hopefully the rest will look after itself."

Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"It was a good day for us overall,  qualified 11th. I feel like we just missed the car a little bit. I feel like we could have been in the 10 which would have been really awesome to be in the shootout but nevertheless we'll take 11th. And then the race we sort of kept our nose clean for most of the race. There's a little bit of carnage happening around us. I don't know that we executed it perfectly, but I think there's certainly a bit to work on for tomorrow. We still moved forward and we're in the top 10 in eighth and really strong showing from Andre to be seventh for the team, I think is really good. So good for the championship, good for the team championship and overall good day. So now looking forward to making some small changes for tomorrow. I think we have good potential still. So looking forward to see how we get on."

Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #14 SCT Logistics Camaro
"It was a tough day today didn't get the car right in qualifying which is unfortunate. In the race we had decent pace at the start and then unfortunately tagged another car and had damage and that really put us on the backfoot the rest of the race. Didn't manage to move forward and we'll try again tomorrow."

Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Qualifying was okay, probably didn't get as much progression as what we wanted as the track came up. It was pretty tough to start with on the cold track and so probably didn't maximize everything there. It's pretty finicky here so little changes seem to make quite a big difference. So trying to get on top of that and the inputs in driving.  For the race, the first stint was pretty average on tyre life and so I struggled a little bit there but had a really solid second stint where we could just cut laps and do no skids. That was kind of the aim of that one. And then the restart was pretty hectic. You know there's some tyre deg around us with some people but sort of move forward and then on the last lap had a bit of a moment with someone. In all I think it wasn't too bad. We had some good things to build on for tomorrow. Like I said, I think our pace in this middle stint was quite good and representative of what the car is actually capable of. I think the race pace is pretty solid. But tyre life is a bit of a worry in traffic."

Lochie Dalton
Super2 Driver, #43 AWC Motorsport Commodore
"It was pretty average quali because we did one lap and then well it was a red flag so the session got called. We didn't really complete any green running or anything so we were stuck down in 18th [overall] and then the race wasn't too bad the car was pretty good, we were making our way through and then unfortunately I just made a bad mistake and speared it off and and ruined our tyres. So yeah, we ended up with the back of the field but tomorrow is a new day."