Strong fight back by TKR
16/8/2004 12:17 (Press Release) -
Team Kiwi Racing V8 Supercar Driver Craig Baird and the team showed that Kiwi never lie down attitude, fighting back from 31st position on the grid to an impressive 15th position in the second of the two 140km races at Oran Park Raceway in Sydney, NSW today.
After qualifying less than 1 second off pole position and yet in 23rd position for the start of race one, Baird got a good start and passed three cars moving into 20th position by the first corner.
Knowing that Baird and the All Black Machine had found the speed in the morning warm up session that was missing in the first sector during qualifying yesterday, disappointment struck when in the opening laps of race one Brad Jones in the Ozemail Ford Falcon drove into the rear corner of the TKR car sending Baird into a spin which resulted in the All Black Machine being stranded in the middle of the race track while everyone passed on by before he could get going again.
Baird eventually restarted the race in last position to be 35th on the track before he was given a black flag by the officials to come in and remove the damaged rear diffuser which was damaged as a result of Jones' hit on Baird.
As a result of the drive through penalty which had to be done before the pit window was open for the compulsory tyre change and being in 35th position as a result of being spun around, any chances of securing good points for TKR from race one was already over by default.
TKR management made the strategic decision to do a third pit stop as the TKR cars was already last in the race, removing the fresh tyres from the TKR car to conserve them for race two, sending Baird back out on old rubber for the rest of race one.
Baird finished race one in 31st position out of 35 cars.
Race Two started with the same vigour as race one with teams and drivers jostling for position.
Again Baird got a good start and drove extremely well through out race two with the compulsory pit stop going to plan.
Race two eventually saw the TKR machine cross the line in 15th position after making up an incredible 16 positions passing half of the field throughout the race.
"We had good car speed after sorting the problem in this mornings warm up that we had with sector one in Qualifying on Saturday"
"We could have had a very good weekend here in Sydney despite our qualifying in 23rd position if we only got through the first race without being turned around which would of seen us start further up the grid in race two where we would have been able to take it up to the big boys yet again with our car speed". Said Baird
Team Kiwi Racing now focus their attention on next weekends final round of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Championship where they are looking to secure a podium finish in the Championship as well as their build up to the Sandown 500 endurance race.
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