PUKEKOHE - ROUND 3

This year the 3rd & final round of the NZ Supertruck series was held at Pukekohe, Auckland instead of at Manfield as in previous years. So for most of the team, it was on the road on Wednesday to ensure a good spot for the camp in the pits for Thursday. Once again the whole team stayed on site in either the new coach (which has been a god send) or in the transporter. Thankfully there was little to do to the truck apart from checks, a few minor adjustments & of course cleaning. Friday test day had us concentrating on getting the suspension fine tuned for the Pukekohe circuit. Initial times disappointing compared to last year with us nearly 2 seconds slower. Needless to say there was plenty of discussion about the options available. Malcolm also was using the test time well trying new lines & moves, some on & some off the track. Obviously we can’t afford to play like that in races. We had some valuable input from Matt Summerfield (a top truck racer from the UK, who finished 2nd in his ‘B’ class & 3rd overall) who Malcolm took out on Friday & bounced a few ideas off. The writer (Stu) also went out with Mal in the final test session & thought to himself, “why am I doing this” just after discussions on this being the time to push things to the limits. Thankfully I survived & came in smiling.

The camp site (Transporter out of view)	Malcolm being interviewed by TV1	Malcolm going out on to the track

SATURDAY QUALIFYING

Adjustments made & new front tyres on, it was time to see if all the talk made any difference. First session was better but still not great. After further discussions & minor tweaks, we once again had the 3rd fastest qualifying time behind Porter & Middleton. As always at the end of the season, we were getting low on tyres & money, so rather than risking too much for no real gain, we elected not to race in the non-points race at the end of the day. Instead Malcolm & The team actually got to watch some racing & relax a little. This was followed up with a good team building night at the local Cosmopolitan Club, which was extremely well equipped with among other things had pool tables, a 10 pin bowling alley & 4 side by side linked car racing computer games that were all well utilized for a few inter-team challenges. This was followed up by a few quiet ones & plenty of jokes & entertainment from our overseas visitor.

Matt (from UK) & Malcolm	The line up waiting for someone’s repairs	A different view of the truck

RACE DAY

Rain threatened but thankfully stayed away for both warm up & race 1. With grid positions determined by the qualifying, we started 3rd from the front & were hopeful of 2nd place finish but Bob got the jump on us at the start. With the differences in times being so close Malcolm wisely decided to play it safe & settle for 3rd rather than risking it all for a chance at an unlikely 2nd. The 2nd race was back to the reverse grid, split field handicap start however this time, we were quite happy about the handicapping. Although our qualifying time was disappointing, it certainly helped us out with the handicap start. We started 3rd from the back again but this time with a bigger gap between us & Bob & Porter. With good power off the start, Malcolm clawed his way through the slower trucks leaving Bob & Porter struggling at the back. By the 6th lap Malcolm was in 2nd place biting at the heals of Terry Lowe. Malcolm’s 1st championship win was once again looking good until the unthinkable again happened. Cedric Abernathy had a horrendous crash coming over the hill onto the front straight. It all went wrong and he left the track slightly air borne breaking through 2 Armco barriers before his truck came to rest on it’s roof with Cedric pinned in a very squashed cab. There was pandemonium as safety crews & fellow competitors raced to try & free him. There were grave concerns for Cedric with it taking a good 20-30 minutes before freeing him. Although far from good, he was relatively well off considering the magnitude of the crash & the end state of his truck. A very sad end to the race & all thoughts of racing were gone until he was safely out. At the time of writing, his worst injuries were a broken leg & arm & plenty of bruising among other things but he was asking how his truck was, so we’ll take that as a good sign. We wish Cedric all the best for a speedy recovery.

Needless to say the race was finished, meaning that elusive 1st championship win eluded Malcolm again. And even more disappointing was the damage to the race barriers was so bad that the race officials called an end to the Supertruck racing for the year. That took all chance of us getting 2nd place in the series from Bob although we were going to have had to come 1st or 2nd in the last 2 races while Bob finished last. It was a huge ask, but with the reverse grid starts it would have been interesting. After all we had achieved the 1st part of the task! But I guess we’ll never know.

The very scary site of Cedric’s crash	The BTR Team thank you for your support

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