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Broc Feeney drove the #87 Triple Eight Race Engineering Chevrolet Camaro, which would ordinarily be team-mate Will Brown’s, while Anton De Pasquale piloted his #11 Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang around Mount Panorama.
Feeney was always set to attend the event as part of his duties in the Pro class Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG in the Bathurst 12 Hour itself (as was Brown), while De Pasquale has been dispatched to Central West New South Wales by the Ford homologation team for the occasion.
As announced by Supercars, both were fitted with torque sensors “and other non-standard sensors for further data collection,” after the Ford camp worked into this month on improvements to its Coyote-based 5.4-litre engine.
Speedcafe also observed both cars sporting roof-mounted pitot tubes, which are used to measure air speed.
Given cars have already been put through a wind tunnel, twice in the case of the Mustang, it may well be that said tubes are being used as a sense-check for the engine data which is being collected across the three sessions; two today and one tomorrow.
As previously reported, Ford and DJR have been working on improving their engine’s moment of inertia.
Multiple engine specs were used across testing earlier this month, with the proposed 2024 engine in a DJR Mustang and one of the Blanchard Racing Team, while the rest of the field ran an older spec.
That engine work has run so deep into pre-season means transient dynamometer testing will not happen until after racing commences, with paddock intel suggesting it may occur in April.
This morning’s demonstration ran for 30 minutes, with another 20 minutes of running due this afternoon at Mount Panorama.
