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After topping the class in prologue yesterday, Lowndes and co-driver Dale Moscatt built on their lead across the opening leg out to Aputula.
However there was some good fortune involved, the factory Ford Ranger Raptor of Brad and Byam Lovell proving the quicker of the production cars in the early part of the stage, running down the Silverado by the 55-kilometre mark.
The Ranger suffered a number of technical issues from there, though, including damper overheating, drive mode problems and complications with brakes.
That opened the door for the Chevy to set a new first-leg record with a 2h56m.692s which means a four-minute advantage for tomorrow.
“I underdrove a little bit; you never know what is going to happen and you encounter so many different terrains, sandy side, the rock sections, some dips, jumps, everything going on,” said Lowndes.
“We had a couple of moments; with the longer wheel base the rhythm through the whoops, you’ve got to get [that] right. A couple of times I approached it too quickly.
“But really, it’s built like a Sherman tank, so I’m looking forward to going back tomorrow.”
Ford driver Lovell, meanwhile, remains confident the Walkinshaw Performance-run Raptor can challenge the Chevy tomorrow.
“We had a really strong start and were running at a solid pace to catch the Chevy,” he said.
“Right about the same time we noticed that the dampers were beginning to get warm, so we checked up our pace a little bit knowing that we were three minutes ahead of the Chevy at that point. We also had a couple errors with the drive modes, so stopped twice to deal with that.
“As we continued the shock fade turned into more of a clunk and we started doing some damage to the dampers themselves. So again we slowed, and again we had more brake issues.
“Finally, we had an ABS light come on which really reduced braking, and the left-rear damper actually tore itself apart – the shaft dislodged from the top mount. It eventually wedged itself between the frame and the tyre which was the best-case scenario given the circumstances.
“We were able to maintain somewhat of a pace heading into Finke and at the end of the day we only lost a little over four minutes to the Chevy.
“We’ll get this truck fixed, and I think we still have a shot at it tomorrow.”
Those are the last two cars remaining in the Production 4WD class.
The race concludes back in Alice Springs tomorrow.
