Dumbrell fastest, Golding crashes in Practice 2

Paul Dumbrell continued Red Bull’s flying start to the Bathurst weekend in a co-driver practice session that saw a heavy crash for rookie James Golding.

Following on from Jamie Whincup’s 2:05.9s best in Practice 1, Dumbrell took over duties in the #88 Holden to top Practice 2 with a 2:06.89s best.

Dumbrell was 0.8s clear of the field when he set his time after 50 of the 60 minutes.

The red flags flew shortly afterwards when Golding crashed James Moffat’s #34 Volvo at Reid Park.

Golding slammed the left-side wall through the high-speed section, leaving the car to be returned to the pitlane on a flatbed.

Moffat expects that the damage will rule him out of today’s final practice session.

“It’s never nice when they come back on the flatbed,” he said.

“The guys will have to assess it but at first look I’d say it’s unlikely you’ll see us again today.”

The final seven minutes saw a number of improvers, led by Brad Jones Racing’s Ash Walsh.

Walsh moved to within 0.17s of Dumbrell to end up second ahead of Alex Premat in the second Red Bull Holden.

The third of the Triple Eight cars, the Caltex Holden of Steven Richards, was just 26th.

It followed a difficult opening session for Craig Lowndes, who ended Practice 1 23rd after an off at The Chase damaged the front splitter of the #888 Commodore.

“We’re just not fast enough at the moment,” said Richards.

“Clearly the car is a long way from where we’d like it. We’ve just got to keep working away.”

By contrast, Dean Canto slotted comfortably into Mark Winterbottom’s Bottle-O Ford to end up fourth.

Macauley Jones, Jack Perkins, Jack Le Brocq, Luke Youlden, David Wall and Steve Owen completed the top 10.

The third and final Supercars practice session of the day will get underway at 1515 local time.

Result: Virgin Australia Supercars Championship Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 Practice 2 (Co-drivers)