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Wilson Brothers Racing once again showed incredible
pace with a new lap record, but luck was not on their side in the second race of
the opening round of the reborn Australian Manufacturers Championship at Phillip
Island yesterday.
Lee Castle, driving the team’s leading Subaru WRX
Sti blitzed around the 4.445km circuit in a time of 1:49.8475, almost a full
second under the existing production car lap record.
Castle made a fantastic start to lead the faster
Group A and B cars off the start line in the one hour long handicap event, and
soon settled into second position behind the pace setting BMW 335i of Garry
Holt.
Following on from the compulsory tyre change pit
stop, the race started to unravel for Castle with another pit stop to check for
a vibration.
When the car returned to the track, Castle fired a
warning shot to the rivals for the upcoming rounds with some consistently quick
lap times, finishing second in class A behind the eventual race winner Des Wall
driving a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo RS.
For Brian Smallwood driving the second of the
Wilson Brothers Racing Subaru WRX Stis, the race ended with heavy contact
against the tyre barrier on the exit of the treacherous turn one.
The car left the circuit at 165km/h before making
heavy contact front and rear contact with the wall; the impact registering over
2Gs.
Up until that point, Smallwood had once again been
making steady progress, posting his fastest laps of the weekend.
Earlier in the weekend Castle qualified in third,
only one tenth of a second from pole position, however the bewildering starting
procedure saw the car line up on the final row of the grid for the first
race.
Smallwood made a cracking start, however contact at
the second corner saw the car head to the pits for early repairs.
A wet track combined with a noise curfew saw the
race finish 12 minutes short of the scheduled hour long race, with Castle
leading home Smallwood for second and third in class.
The next round of the Australian Manufacturers
Championship is at Oran Park, a circuit that should favour the team’s four wheel
drive weapons.
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