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Shannons Australian Production Car Championship - Round 1 Practice 2 - Bathurst NSW - April 6-8 |
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Friday, 06 April 2007 |
The Class B Mitsubishi Lancer EVO of Bob Hughes, Rick Bates and Peter Gazzard has become the pacesetter after day one of practice for the 2007 WPS Bathurst 12 Hour, round one of the Shannons Australian Production Championship at Bathurst on Good Friday. It was also a celebration of a 20 year reunion for Bates and Gazzard who were teamed together in their Bathurst debut in the late 1980’s.
In the second session (of two sessons) held this afternoon the team lapped with a best time of 2 mins 33.8206 to be over a second ahead of the Gary Holt, Paul Morris and Craig Baird Class A BMW 335i while the Class B Subaru Imprezza WRX of Neil Crompton, Grant Denyer and Chris Alajajian was third quickest.
The second BMW 335i of Barry Morcom, Beric Lynton and Chris Pither was
next ahead of the Pro Duct EVOs of Mark King, Mark Brame and Jason
Walsh, and Bob Pearson, Anton Mechtler and Bruce Steward.
Thirty two cars completed day one in what is the biggest round of the
championship and being a single race format the usual class handicaps
won’t apply. Still the class final results matter and the rivalry
within these groups is already intense.
There is also an strong interclass battle striving for outright
supremacy – and at this stage Class B for AWD Performance Cars has
outperformed the Class A. Class C appears to be also in with a shot of
an outright placing with the class fastest – the BMW 130i of Luke
Searle and Peter Kelly eighth quickest overall and less than five
seconds off the outright pace.
Class D is a close contest between Ford and Holden with the former
through John Bowe, Jack Elsegood and Chris Delfsma (Ford Falcon XR8)
outpointing the Holden Commodore SS of Brian Walden, Garth Walden and
Michael Auld for top honours.
Former team mates Colin Osborne (Toyota Celica) and Trevor Keene (Mini
Cooper S) are fighting for Class E laurels with Osborne’s crew
marginally ahead as the Jim Hunter led Subaru heads up Class F.
Of the diesel propelled cars the all girl crew of Samantha Reid,
Christina Orr, Leanne Tander and Lauren Grey in their Holden Astra CDTI
Turbo are two seconds faster than the Alfa Romeo 159 of Keene Booker,
Renardo Rinaldo and David Stone but have their femme rivals of Helen
Stig, Amber Anderson and Danielle Argiro in the Class E Celica just
fractionally behind.
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