James Golding achieved his and the team’s first pole position on the Saturday of the most recent event of the season, the Betr Darwin Triple Crown.
However, he went on to finish fourth that afternoon, equalling his and PremiAir’s best race result, and repeated it a day later.
The pole position was also a first for Car #31 race engineer Romy Mayer, in her 12th month at PremiAir, and the Arundel-based squad has since brought onboard a new data engineer, Andrew Gilliam.
That was revealed in Team Manager Stephen Robertson’s pre-NTI Townsville 500 newsletter, as was one of Gilliam’s jobs during the past fortnight.
“We have also been pleased to welcome Andrew Gilliam to the team as data engineer, working across both cars,” he wrote.
“While Andrew only started with us a fortnight ago, he has jumped right in and is currently focusing on improving fuel flow for our pit stops, which will obviously be very important for us this weekend.”
The NTI Townsville 500 marks a return to refuelling with the weekend comprised of a pair of 250km races around the Reid Park Street Circuit.
While the fuel drop was reduced from 100 to 60 litres per race for the Bathurst 500 and cut altogether for the Taupo Super400 (originally 80 litres), it remains at 100 for the North Queensland event.
That means somewhere in the region of 40 seconds of dwell time in each race, split however a team may prefer across its two stops, based on the flow rate of about 2.5 litres per second from a Gen3-spec fuel rig.
Anton De Pasquale proved last year that a three-stop strategy is also viable when he won the Sunday race, although he had extra tyres up his sleeve after dramas on the Saturday.
This weekend also represents the two-year anniversary of Golding’s debut with PremiAir, after he was a mid-season replacement for Garry Jacobson in 2022.
“The Townsville 500 will be a special event for Jimmy Golding, driver of our #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro, as it marks two years since he officially joined our family,” noted Robertson.
“While the track hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for him and our team in the past, we are hoping it will be a case of third time lucky, with our recent form across both sides of the garage certainly giving us some confidence heading to this event.
“Following Darwin, Golding now has five fourth place finishes in his Supercars championship career (four with us) and it is now time for that breakthrough podium.
“At the same time, while a lot of the focus has been on Golding lately following the last event, Tim Slade in our #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro is also definitely one to watch – he has finished as high as fourth at Townsville before and as a two-time race winner and a veteran of this championship, he knows how to get it done.
“As we look to see the team standing on the podium for the first time, a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes in preparation for this weekend, both around the Townsville event itself and its peculiarities, and also looking at how and why we went well in Darwin, so we can replicate that moving forward and make sure we are providing both of our drivers and cars with everything required for success. “
PremiAir is also preparing the ZB Commodore which its latest enduro recruit, Cameron McLeod, is driving in the Dunlop Super2 Series.
That is the car which has been repaired after the wild rollover last time out at Wanneroo Raceway.
“While [McLeod] was unhurt, the car itself was very badly damaged, so badly in fact that we initially thought it was headed to the scrapheap,” revealed Robertson.
“However, with no major roof or chassis damage, we were instead able to undertake an extensive rebuild to ensure the #92 could race-on – something very important indeed, given that there are no ZB shells available at the moment, so ordering a new one would have meant months on the sideline.
“With Cam currently fifth in the Super2 standings, that was a fate we are glad we were able to avoid.”
Track action starts on Friday, with Super2 Practice 1 at 09:45 and Championship Practice 1 at 12:15 local time/AEST.
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