The only way is up for Dexion Racing
4/7/2004 11:44 (Press Release) -
Tony Evangelou is confident his Dexion Racing Ford Falcon will take strides forward after qualifying 17th for round five of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Se-ries at Queensland Raceway.
The red and white-chequered Falcon showed immedi-ate promise in opening practice, finishing the session 12th in the 30 car field. In second practice though, the young team “tried too much, too early” and went the wrong way with set-up. Evangelou languished in 22nd and effectively wasted the whole session.
But steady progress was made in qualifying, which has given the Dexion team hope that they’ll quickly peg back the top dozen from their midfield starting position.
“We made some changes in practice but went the wrong way,” said team driver Evangelou.
“We initially thought it was going to be better but it wasn’t and we ended up with a lot of understeer. I’m sure well make more improvements over the weekend though.”
The Konica Minolta circus is heavily populated by teams based in Queensland, which gives them a distinct ‘home ground’ advantage. But Evangelou believes that excuses like that don’t cut it in this league.
“If you look at the two Actron Air cars (Kevin Mundy and Marcus Zukanovic), they are both outside the top 10 and it’s their home track, while (Victorian-based) Andy Jones is right up the front. The fact that we haven’t been here be-fore shouldn’t be used as an excuse. You either get it right or you don’t, especially on this track where the times are so close and the margin for set-up error is extreme.”
At the end of the session, the top 20 cars were covered by less than two seconds. Dick Johnson Racing’s Owen Kelly scored pole position, ahead of Cameron McLean and Andrew Jones. The top three Falcons were covered by 0.06s, a clear indication of how competitive the ‘junior’ V8 category is.
“The times are extremely close,” Evangelou said.
“One small mistake can drop you a handful of positions …”
One thing that Dexion Racing won’t lack over the week-end is sponsor support. Between 40 and 50 of Dexion’s loyal franchise owners and clients will converge on Queensland Raceway to see the #300 Ford Falcon take on the top Konica Minolta teams.
A bonus for the team’s corporate guests is that the KMV8 Series supports the main V8 Supercar Championship Series, where they’ll witness the ‘best of the best’ in Australian V8 Supercar racing.
|
|
