LG Falcon Hamilton 400 Race Report : 17-19 April 2009

After a busy and successful race season, the finale for the LG Motorsport team was the Hamilton 400 street race event, with our Australian counterparts in the V8 Supercar championship headlining the action-packed schedule. Of course being a “Waikato boy” means this is my home event, so expectations are always high!

 

Once again it was great to be a part of the Hamilton 400 and perform in front of so many race fans having a great time all weekend.  We arrived on Thursday afternoon to setup for the weekend, and were delighted to be able to get in an observation lap with most of the crew on board our pit vehicle. It was great to see some improvements to the circuit over last year, including the removal of the third turn in the chicane, along with an opened up exit to turn 3 and generally less bumps.  From the moment we arrived at the circuit on Friday morning, it was fantastic to soak up the adrenalin-fueled atmosphere along with the busy crowds who all seemed to be enjoying themselves with a great mix of on-and off track entertainment.  There may be a recession on but you certainly wouldn’t know it in Hamilton!  Official crowd attendance was apparently 123,000 over the three days* - so a fantastic opportunity for our sponsors!

 

Yet again, we have had feedback from race fans how much they enjoyed our BNTV8s races at the Hamilton 400 – and found them to be just as exciting, and in many cases far more so than the longer, at times ‘processional’ V8 Supercars races.

 

TESTING AND QUALIFYING (Friday)

Hamilton is quite a unique circuit, apart from obviously being a street race, the corners are very tight, bumpy and some off camber. This requires a unique suspension setup to make the most of everything! After dialing in the car (and driver!) in the 25 minute test session we were working hard to find those elusive few tenths of a second. A few subtle changes to the car and some different braking technique proved fruitful and we were stoked to grab pole position! A very important event to qualify well at, and it doesn’t get much better than first!

 

RACE 1 - Saturday (14 laps) – 2^nd

After getting a good start we were able to stretch out to a five second lead, while the following cars battled with each other, however it didn’t take long for Kayne Scott to break free from the battle pack and concentrate on hunting us down.  On lap 10 he was on our tail going up to the chicane, and then he dived up the inside going into the next turn. My right side mirror had been folded in from previous close encounters with the walls and next thing Kayne was crunching in to my back wheel and door, causing me to spin out of the lead, a move which we felt was not on. Officialdom decided otherwise and no penalty was applied…. We finished second thanks to our commanding earlier lead, as well as managing to get right back on the pace, and some disasters further back in the field.

 

RACE 2 - Sunday (14 laps) – 12^th

Starting where we finished (2^nd) was not ideal as the outside starting position at this track invariably leads to being shuffled back through the tight right hand turn one. This proved to be the case and we banged and rubbed all the way down the next straight and got squeezed into the wall at turn two. After reversing out of the tyre bundle and starting again, and with the car sustaining damage, we battled through to mid pack before a spin again put us towards the rear of the field. 12^th place was the best we could salvage, but put us 5^th for the weekend so far - so not all bad as that gave us a reasonable starting grid for the last race and importantly on the inside of the grid!

 

RACE 3 - Sunday (18 laps) - 2^nd

After starting from grid position 5 we quickly dispensed with several cars before setting off in pursuit of Tim Edgell and Kayne Scott. After pressuring Tim for several laps, he made a small mistake going in to turn 4 and we were able to pounce and move up to second. We opened quite a gap on him, and were lapping slightly faster than Kayne, but he had got the jump at the start so we were happy to settle into a rhythm to finish a strong 2^nd.

 

OVERALL PLACINGS – 3^rd overall

Our combined points for the weekend resulted in a podium for the round – we were third overall and it was great to spray the champagne and finish the weekend on a real high! The Hamilton 400 really is a fantastic event, and it was great to see packed grandstands with the many Holden and Ford fans waving their favorite teams’ colours.

 

Posted: Sun 19 Apr 2009

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