Nulon Racing is hoping their home race of the Gold Coast 500 will be kinder to them on Sunday, following a challenging Saturday for the Arundel based team.
In an exceptionally busy race packed full of penalties for exceeding track limits – which both the #23 and #31 Nulon Racing Camaros of Tim Slade and Jimmy Golding avoided – the Nulon Racing team brought home final results of P17 (#31) and P21 (#23), with Slade’s result following a P9 starting result after a top ten shootout berth, before he was taken out in the first lap and forced to recover from the back.
“It was a bit of a mixed day for both cars,” Nulon Racing Team Manager, Stephen Roberston, said.
“We had a strong qualifying for Tim and the #23 Nulon Racing Camaro, which made it into the Top Ten Shootout, while a kerb strike unfortunately stopped Jimmy and the #31 Nulon Racing Camaro from securing their own top ten berth.
“It was then a hard race for both cars, with Tim taken out on lap one, turn two with contact from Brodie Kostecki, which left us with steering damage hampering us for the rest of the race.
“Jimmy also had minor contact during the race as well which put us out of position, and a slow refueling cost us as well.
“It is safe to say we didn’t get the result we wanted, but tomorrow is another day and we will have a crack at making another shootout and then give it our all for the 250k race.”
Slade was circumspect about his day.
“I was happy with qualifying this morning, especially after struggling a bit on Friday – it was nice to find a bit of direction with the car which made sense, it was pretty good,” Slade said.
“I was pretty disappointed with my shootout lap; I didn’t have the grid at the start and it wasn’t an amazing lap after that.
“And then the race was pretty disappointing too – it is just one of those things, where I don’t think it was anything intentional, it is just with the kerbs and the lack of space here, and when you hit wheel to wheel it rips the steering wheel out of your hand and you have no control over where you are going.
“The car was fairly damaged after that, the steering was way out, and it was a bit of a tough slog for the rest of the race, especially as we were half a lap down on lap one.
“I was praying for a safety car, but also unsure if I would have much to attack with if there was a safety car! I just pressed on and tried to learn as much as possible for tomorrow.
“The car didn’t feel too bad considering, so hopefully we can get in the ten again tomorrow and go on to have a cleaner race.”
Golding was also hoping for a better day tomorrow.
“It was not the best day today,” Golding said.
“We didn’t quite nail qualifying and started P16 for the race. The race was looking allright; we settled in at the start and were looking after our tyres with the car feeling pretty good pace wise, but it just didn’t pan out in the end.
“We have a little bit to work through to find out what exactly happened – we will analyse everything and come back stronger tomorrow.”
Nulon Racing will be on-track here on the Gold Coast on Sunday for a15-minute qualifying session for race 26 (10.05am), the race 26 top ten shootout (11.35am) and race 26 (85 laps) at 2.15pm. For event information, visit www.supercars.com.au
For more information on Nulon Racing, please visit www.premiairracing.sailorstudio.net or follow the team on its social media platforms at www.facebook.com/PremiAirRacing/, www.instagram.com/premiair_racing/, www.linkedin.com/company/premiairracing/ and www.twitter.com/premiairracing
