His flying 1:17.444 at Sydney Motorsport Park at the Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge came in the Supercheap Autos Superlap Shootout under lights. It undercut his earlier morning time by 0.23s.
“I lost a few reference points in the dark and undercut in the braking at Turn 2 and Turn 6,” he admitted.
“It was great to get through Turn 1 flat, although I thought I could have gone a bit faster,” he added with a 1:16 opportunistic target.
“I’ll be back next year; it is up to [Rob] Pobestek, but I’ll come back on a pushbike if I have to. I just love this event.
“One thing I’ve learnt this year is never jump off the roof (he broke his foot last year). I was on the roof this morning and had people running from everywhere – it is certainly one way to drag a crowd.”
He wasn’t the only one to go quicker under the lights when it was cooler, and the wind had all but died off.
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Finland’s Sami Sivonen in the Audi R8 1:1 produced a 1:24.832 to be second fastest overall and the winner of the Pro Am. Texan Feras Qartoumy put his PA Chev Corvette within striking distance (and third outright) of Sivonen’s previous best before the latter put it beyond doubt.
The Open contest which also turned out to be for fifth outright, also went down to the wire. Nathan Morcom (Mitsubishi Evo) improved by 1.2s to go from third to first. Then Rob Nguyen (Nissan Silvia S15) went faster with a 1:25.543.
It was left to Tim Slade who had been the class pacesetter, despite a front suspension failure as he complete his one and only lap earlier in the Extreme GTR Nissan R32. In the shootout he was up in the first sector, but a tyre failure brought the lap to an end at Turn 5, and he would be third in class and sixth outright.
Josh Buchan in the Pro Rodin Sintura improved his time and was seventh ahead of Nguyen who was also competing in his PA Honda CRX Mighty Mouse which had broken driveshafts earlier in the day.
Aleck Kazakovski (Subaru WRX STi) finished ninth and fourth in PA. Benny Tran was back with his Open Honda Integra after its smoky demise on Friday for tenth. It turned out to be an oil filter rather than an engine.
Trent Grubel was always the Clubsprint front runner in the DC Jap Automotive Subaru, from Friday through to an engine blowup and big overnight swap out. He came back faster and finished with a 1:32.235 set earlier, which in the end put him 17th.
Alex Michalsky in his Evo 6 went so close in the shootout with his 1:32.276. Michael Garland (WRX) missed the shootout due to contact with the tyre barrier out of Turn 5 earlier. But he managed to hold onto third in Clubsprint.
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