Best Racing - Results of Sandown 7 & 8 December 07

[bestracing]

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay in letting you know the outcome of last weekend.

Best racing competed at Sandown in the last ever Australian Production Car Championship round as we know it today. We were excited about this event as it is our favourite track, considering we had previously held a lap record here.

We had a fabulous day of practise on friday, fastest in class C, we identified a few problems such as handling issues and steering issues, which we addressed.

Saturday in the morning we qualified first in class by a margin of 2 seconds with a time of 1.32.7.

Race one was a 6 lap sprint race finished first in class with nearest rival Doxey in an Astra 2 seconds behind.

Race two - 1 hour enduro the event we were excited about! Considering the focus had never raced this distance before, we had been concerned about fuel usage but with calculations we were confident it would not be a problem. The one hour event was a reverse grid which meant we were starting 3rd position and the other classes were released so many seconds behind us. Darren got a fantastic start and by turn one was in the lead he continued this way until the 40 minute mark of the race. Darren had a 16 second gap on the nearest car unfortunately when the safety car was deployed due to a car going off at turn one this bunched up the field and allowed the Class A cars to drive by, Darren still first in class and 8th outright at 4 minutes to go Darren advised us that he had no brakes and that he would just keep going as best as he could, still had a 7 second lead on the nearest class car. With 2 minutes to go Darren travelling on the back straight getting slower and slower, he advised us that he thought he had a broken drive shaft on the front right and had great difficulty controlling the focus with twice nearly hitting the wall. I told him to keep going just come slowly around the track and finish the race, a few minutes later he lost the class lead, he continued around the track off line and managed to get the focus over the line and parked it, however we did finish 2nd in class!

It was an amazing drive to watch, Darren walked back to the pits whilst the focus was brought back by the tow truck, with the right wheel just bearly on, at further investigation we discoverd the hub had broken, obviously the brakes went first.

It was dissappointing for the Darren and the team to finish this way however the teams determination and Darrens drive did not go unrecognised, with many teams praising our efforts.

We would like to thank the Euroford Club and members for your support throughout 2007 and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Best Racing