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Glenfords Racing Set New Benchmark At Indy |
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| Attachment 17428 |
| Marcus Marshall in the Ford Glenfords-AEG V8 Supercar as the crowd looks on |
| Attachment 17429 |
| The Glenfords-AEG Falcon in action with new livery at Gold Coast |
Glenfords Racing's Indy debut could hardly have been scripted better as the team finished a season high 18th for the round and finishing inside the top 20 in all three races.
In practice the Ford Glenfords-AEG V8 Supercar of Marcus Marshall got off to a strong start setting the 24th fastest time in practice, a notable effort given the Gold Coast local had never driven the car before.
Marshall then put the V8 on grid position 23 after an outstanding qualifying effort that netted the team their best grid position ever.
Marshall made a strong start and when a safety car was brought out on lap one, the Glenfords-AEG driver had climbed to 21st.
A fantastic pit stop under pressure from the Glenfords crew enabled Marshall to rejoin the race and rise a position courtesy of the team's work.
With the laps counting down Marshall held on to deliver the team their best race result for the season with a 20th for race one.
Again starting in 20th for race two, Marshall's trademark fast starts saw him rise to 17th.
Locked in battle with Greg Murphy, Marshall dropped to 22nd after kiwi driver attempted to pass the Ford Glenfords-AEG Supercar and went too deep, having to correct on the exit and forcing Marshall to slow behind him.
Not to be outdone, Marshall pushed on and another lightning pitstop from the Glenfords crew on lap 11 allowed Marshall to position himself for another top 20.
After running 22nd Marshall made his way up the field to again take the final position in the top 20.
A number of post-race penalties to other drivers elevated Marshall to 16th for race two and saw him start from that position for the final race.
As the lights went green Marshall found himself stuck in no man's land when cars in front spun, forcing Marshal to slow to a near halt.
With nowhere to go the Glenfords-AEG Falcon was struck from behind and sent Marshall spinning before he had passed the start finish line.
While able to continue, Marshall re-joined the field near the rear but with a safety car was able to gain back some lost time.
A number of retirements saw Marshall and his new V8 Falcon in 21st position and some significant panel damage, but able to continue to race.
The team's compulsory pitstop for tyres revealed the rear panel had been rubbing on the left rear tyre, affecting the performance of the car although not significantly.
Running again in 20th position after the stop, Marshall consolidated his position and progressed up to 18th by the races end, the team's highest ever race position.
Whilst unable to truly challenge for a top fifteen race and round result after the incident at the start of the race, the Glenfords Racing V8 Supercar team had brought home their best performance in their short history.
The achievement even more impressive given the crew worked tirelessly building the car from the ground up after Bathurst and had never run the car until putting it on the Gold Coast street circuit.
Glenfords racing finished with 150 points on their first visit to the famous Indy round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series, pacing them well inside the top 20 for the round in 18th.
Quotes:
Marcus Marshall
"This is just a great result for the team, the guys have worked just so hard to get us here and to finish in the top 20 for all three races is a great result."
"I'm still not sure what happened at the start, I saw the accident in front of me and slowed to avoid it; I couldn't go left or I'd hit others in a similar situation to me and then all of a sudden I was turned around and was at the back of the field.but we recovered and I'm still really happy with the weekend.
"The car feels really great and we were able to nail the setup early on in which helped put us further up the grid and then we had the great results in three races."
Paul Cruickshank
"It was a really good round for the whole organisation, the V8 Supercar crew and also the Carrera Cup crew, so I'm really pleased."
"Everyone worked extremely hard for this round and to get this result is testament to the character and qualities this team possesses, they really stood up when they could easily have gone the other way and they all deserve a real pat on the back."
"We had three strong races and despite the race three incident, which was entirely out of our control, we came away with our best ever round result and points haul."
Paul Cruickshank on Carrera Cup
"I think Andy (Team Manager, Andy McElrea) and all the boys from Carrera Cup deserve a lot of credit, they've done a great job all year and to step up like they did this week, in what has been a pretty tough couple of weeks for everyone at the workshop, is just phenomenal."
"It has been a very pleasing weekend and they'll be right up there in the final round at Phillip Island for sure, I have no doubt."
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 December 2006 )
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