Walden's home track hopes go up in smoke
16/8/2004 12:13 (Press Release) -
Walden Motorsport’s Garth Walden has walked away from his local track with only 15 competition points following a string of misfortune at Round 8 of the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship Series at Oran Park.
With high expectations for a strong performance at Oran Park Raceway, the Western Sydney based operation was unlucky to only produce a 28th from the first race, being forced out of the second on the first lap due to mechanical problems.
Walden Motorsport Team Manager Brian Walden said, “Unfortunately that’s the way motor sport goes…it doesn’t really matter how good you are if you keep running into bad luck”.
Qualifying in 34th position for the first race, Garth Walden had a relatively clean race to advance to 28th by lap 21 which he held on to for the finish.
The weekend then came to an abrupt finish when a second cracked power steering rack of the day, as similar problems occurred in the morning warm-up, forced the team to reluctantly withdraw the car from the race.
In the part of the race he was competitive in, Garth was put to the test in a flurry of close-quarters action shortly before white smoke came billowing from the supercar.
“I had a great jump from the start which got me really psyched-up for a strong performance, and I enjoyed the time I was out there,” said Garth.
“Coming into the first set of corners I was quite tight on the rear of Bensard’s WPS Falcon, and the next thing I knew I had been hit in the driver’s side rear door, which did major body damage to our Falcon.
“At one stage there were three of us side-by-side on the approach to the bridge and I ended up on the grass…After contacting with one of the Triple Eight on the overpass I saw the smoke coming from the rear and really hoped it was a tyre.”
Walden Motorsport’s troubles began on the Friday of Round 8 when a pre-round miscommunication and differing rule interpretations left the team to run with tyres that had already seen over 100 laps.
After handling difficulties in the first practice session the team worked late into the night to make some alterations to the Wilson Accounting and Solicitors / Godfrey’s Carpet Choice Falcon.
“When I took the car out on Friday it felt really loose in the rear, and was having problems continually over-steering…we made some adjustments to tighten things up and it immediately felt much better,” said Garth.
Garth barely had a chance to test get a feel for the track on Saturday when their mechanical problems began, pitting-in after only four laps in the second practice session of the round with a shattered rear axle.
After completing the final practice session with a top time of 1:13.2019 the team was still outside of the required 105% qualifying time, however, they were confident of making the grid for Sunday.
“The car had recorded sufficient times when we first brought it out here in March. Since then I would say that we have changed quite a bit,” said Brian, “All of which has been for the better.”
In qualifying Garth bettered his fastest lap from the entire weekend by almost 2.5 seconds with a time of 1:10.8383. However, with just under five minutes remaining, excessive noise saw the car pit-in being caused by a broken differential.
With a decision due over the next week about the team’s co-driver for the endurance rounds, Walden Motorsport will again be looking for some strong performances.
“We obviously would have liked to finish this round with much stronger results, but with the enduro’s next, you never know what could happen,” said Brian.
Walden Motorsport’s next appearance will be under the Romano Racing Franchise at the Betta Electrical 500 to be held at Sandown International Raceway, 10-12 September.
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