Brad Jones says this weekend’s WD-40 Phillip Island 500 will provide a proud milestone in the history of Brad Jones Racing as it plans to field seven V8 Supercars across three classes.
The Albury squad is set for its busiest Supercars race meeting on record with its three-car Virgin Australia Supercars Championship and Dunlop Super2 efforts joined by an entry for Jack Smith in the third-tier Kumho V8 Touring Car Series.
Running seven cars this weekend has seen BJR employ more than 50 staff to oversee the operation at Phillip Island.
The undertaking to prepare the entries arrives after the squad was forced to undergo extensive repairs following the carnage at the Tyrepower Tasmania Super Sprint.
In the two week turn around prior to Phillip Island the squad has had to repair Tim Blanchard’s Commodore and build up two new Dunlop Super2 cars for Macauley Jones and Smith.
Team boss Brad Jones admitted it is a humbling sight to see his fleet of cars ready considering the amount of work his crew have had to complete in the lead up.
The squad has also had to call in a few favours to bolster its personnel required to run the cars.
“It is especially proud moment when you think about how much work has gone into the six cars that were racing in Tasmania, as well as prepare the Kumho car for this weekend,” Jones told Speedcafe.com.
“It is a pretty big weekend with seven cars across three classes so it is going to be quite busy.
“It is certainly not something that has happened before in V8 Supercar land.
“I’m sure people will think I’m crazy but we ran seven cars last year, but it just so happens this year there is one race where all the cars run.
“To run the Kumho car normally we share people from the Dunlop Super2 teams but for this weekend obviously we can’t.
“It is great to not only have a our normal grow of people here but to have some others come back who have been part of the family.
“Hopefully we will get out of this a little bit better than Tasmania.”
Having been forced to undertake a he workload to prepare for this weekend, Jones is confident the team can deliver on the track.
“One of the problems with spending your life repairing stuff is it is not always easy to focus on what is coming up and how to make the car go fast,” he added.
“That being said I think the engineering group has done a really good job on what is necessary for this weekend.
“This is a place where we either go well or we don’t. We are back on the soft tyre which we last ran at Adelaide.
“So far I’ve felt that every where we go and when the conditions are right we are fast.
“I have nothing to base this on, but i think we can be pretty competitive.”
BJR will begin its WD-40 Phillip Island 500 weekend with the opening Kumho V8 Touring Cars Series practice session at 0900 today.
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