Lessons to learn from The Bend for BJR
Brad Jones Racing wraps up a give-and-take weekend at the OTR SuperSprint in Tailem Bend.
Sunday’s two races held mixed results for the team, with all cars holding reasonable pace but unable to travel up the field.
The first event of the day however saw two of the four BJR competitors in Andre Heimgartner and Bryce Fullwood finish inside the top 10.
Race 22
Middy’s Electrical superstar Fullwood led the charge out of P10 in the final race of the weekend, looking feisty in the opening stages.
However Fullwood was found to have sped in pitlane during his compulsory stop and he was hit with a 15 second penalty; dropping him from 11th to 23rd.
Andre Heimgartner had a difficult race, struggling to find balance with the car.
After the pit stop for the #8 R&J Batteries Camaro, it came back to the Kiwi a little and he was able to finish just outside the ten in 12th.
Jack Smith had one of his best races of the year, with a strong strategy backing up the pace in his car.
The SCT Logistics driver came forward five spots from 19th on the grid, to 14th at the line.
Macauley Jones struggled as well in the #96 Camaro, which sports a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle livery this weekend.
Jones’ strategy had him run long on his first set of tyres and when he re-emerged he was able to claw back some positions to finish 21st.
Race 21
The earlier 20 lap race saw Fullwood and Heimgartner claim top ten spots, with the help of perfectly executed pit stops.
The 8/14 crew pulled together their fastest ever in-race stop (2.4s) to get Fullwood back on track, giving him the opportunity to move forward after dropping a few spots with a big lock-up on Lap 2.
Heimgartner stopped later, but had great race pace and moved forward to finish 10th after starting in 14th.
The Pizza Hut Racing Camaro was called in for an early stop but was caught in track on fresh tyres with pace to burn and unfortunately wasn’t able to make the most of it.
Jones came across the line in 19th, moving up four spots over the course of the race.
Smith happened across another early incident and was pushed back but made his way back through taking the chequered flag in 21st.
The Supercars Championship now moves onto the Sandown 500 (September 15-17), the first of the two endurance races on the calendar.
Hear from our drivers…
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"Had a tough weekend, just banked what we could and stayed out of trouble. Bit confusing as far as set up goes and different stuff. It definitely could have been worse but we just have to try and learn what we can. I think Bathurst will be the next track we go to that’s similar to this, so we just need to analyse what happened and see if we can come up with some good lessons going forward."
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Much better day today than yesterday, Phil did a great job with the car. 7th and 10th in qualifying which was great. Managed 8th in the first race and then in the second race, to be honest, the car was better and I think we had a bit of speed but just didn’t quite come together for us. Unfortunately I got a penalty for speeding in the pitlane which was a bit of a late call. I was half getting past and I was in the dirt , long story short I wasn’t even on the track so sped into pitlane just trying to avoid a crash. Anyway, I got a penalty and that was a shame. 11th on track which was good but with the penalty we went a fair way back. It’s been a tough weekend for us this weekend so I’m glad to have found some speed out of the car and we need to keep looking forward to Sandown now."
Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #14 SCT Logistics Camaro
"Today was definitely a better day than yesterday, managed to qualify a few spots higher up which was good. Our starts were good and both races were significantly better. Unfortunately in the last race we had a bit of a coming together with Scott Pye which cost us a few spots but it was a pretty reasonable day."
Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Qualifying was really a disaster for us today, we couldn’t switch on the new tyre and that made the race really difficult for us. The car itself is pretty strong in clear air but we pretty much got none of that in the race which made that difficult. We did move forward which is good and stayed out of trouble. But really needed to dial some front end into it to get her turning. But Donners [Engineer, Andrew Donnelly] is doing a good job and it’s great to work with him this year."