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Brad Jones Racing has forecast that it will run its Gen3 Camaro Supercars for the first time midway through next week.
This Wednesday, January 1, was supposed to be the shakedown day at Winton for Victorian-based teams and BJR, which is based just across the New South Wales border in Albury.
However, following confirmation from the homologation teams, namely Triple Eight Race Engineering on behalf of Chevrolet and Dick Johnson Racing on behalf of Ford, that not even they would make today’s date for Queensland-based competitors, Supercars has now allowed teams a “flexible testing program”.
In BJR’s latest video update on its Gen3 project, Brad Jones himself outlines its latest parts deliveries, including the rear wing, and explains that they are likely to test initially on February 7 or 8.
“We’ve got our race engine, which is fantastic,” he notes, while observing the engine bay of one of the BJR Camaros.
“We don’t have the exhaust on it at the moment [and] we’ve still got some heat shielding to bolt underneath the car, but hopefully we’ll be doing that tomorrow and then we’ll trial the exhaust on, so we’ll get all that fitted.
“Still waiting for the undertray for the front of the car, but you can see that we’ve got part of the induction system and the radiator ducts, so we’ll get all that onto the car in good time and we’ll mount up the front bar and get the undertray on it.
“Once we do all that stuff, then it’s a matter of setting the car up. So, the guys will run through a whole heap of different set-ups with the car, so for us, that’s going to take days.
“A couple of weeks ago, we decided that it wasn’t possible to get the parts here at the shop and mount it on the car in time to go away and test on the first or do the shakedown, so we’re aiming for the seventh or the eighth and then we’ll go and do a test another week later, hopefully.”
As part of the so-called flexible testing programme, a day’s shakedown running is now unlimited with respect to mileage rather than the usual 60km cap, which equates to 20 laps of Winton Motor Raceway or 19 at Queensland Raceway.
Furthermore, a multi-car team is not restricted to testing all of its cars on the same day as each other.
As it stands, Blanchard Racing Team, which fields a single Ford Mustang, is likely to be the only squad to conduct its shakedown on the February 1 Winton date.
DJR and Matt Stone Racing are set to roll out at Queensland Raceway on February 7, with Triple Eight and PremiAir Racing to head to Ipswich on February 9.
