The Supercheap Auto-backed Triple Eight Race Engineering wildcard of Craig Lowndes and Zane Goddard has had its second test day confirmed.
The #888 Chevrolet Camaro is set to run tomorrow at Queensland Raceway, in preparation for September’s Penrite Oil Sandown 500 and then the Repco Bathurst 1000 in October.
Tomorrow’s outing comes after a first test for the Supercheap Auto Camaro at Queensland Raceway on June 1, along with the rest of the Sunshine State-based Repco Supercars Championship entries, before Goddard raced at the Betr Darwin Triple Crown.
An enduro wildcard is entitled to three test days, the next of which would likely be taken in the lead-up to the Sandown 500, which takes place on September 15-17.
Goddard was classified 22nd, 21st, and 24th in three races at Darwin, taking the chequered flag 19th in the latter before a 15-second time penalty was added for contact which caused Jack Smith to spin.
Reflecting on that event at the time, he said, “I think the weekend taught me a lot.
“We made a lot of places up in the first race right at the start of the race, but the tyres were dead toward the end of it. It was definitely an important race to help me learn how to manage the tyres with the new Gen3 cars, especially on the exit of corners.
“The second race was kind of the opposite, we didn’t get a good start but had much better tyre management throughout the race.
“We had really great speed at the end but unfortunately lost a few places. I left some space at Turn 11 when I thought someone was going to overtake me, because if you turn across someone there it would be a pretty big shunt, but then got caught on the marbles and drifted off track, which is where we lost a fair bit of time, because that person ended up finishing a fair few places ahead of us.
“I feel like we probably could have matched him pace-wise if that didn’t happen and then also unfortunately that we also got a 15-second time penalty which put salt in the wound a little bit.
“But, as I said before, a good learning weekend. We were always in the top 20, ideally we would have liked to be closer to the top 10 but for a first race weekend back in a while, a new car, and being a fair few rounds behind everyone else I think the team did a super job over the entire weekend.”
Triple Eight’s full-time Red Bull Ampol Racing entries have one test day left, which is also likely to be taken in the lead-up to the Sandown 500.
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