R10 S’OUT – Skaife masters slippery shootout
12/10/2002 12:40 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 race favourites, the Holden Racing Team Commodore of Mark Skaife and Jim Richards will start on pole in tomorrow’s 1000km classic.
Skaife’s poised two-minute 8.82sec lap in this morning’s Top 15 Shootout was more than half a second outside John Bowe’s record qualifying lap but enough to secure the coveted Bathurst qualifying crown.
Glenn Seton threw a spanner in the works; his Falcon breaking on his warm-up lap and creating a slippery obstacle at the top of Conrod Straight for drivers to negotiate on their hot laps.
Bowe had the honour of the final shootout run, but couldn’t match Skaife’s time.
His three-tenths slower lap was enough for a front row spot with co-driver Brad Jones, resuming the David and Goliath battle between the might of HRT and the OzEmail Falcon that went down to the wire in last year’s race.
Jason Bright put the No. 2 HRT Commodore into third.
Steven Richards retained his second row spot, with partner Russell Ingall watching on, clocking the fourth-fastest time.
Todd Kelly was at the helm for Kmart Racing’s run at pole, climbing five positions to fifth. Co-driver Greg Murphy will start the race tomorrow.
Rick Kelly joined his older brother on the third row with an impressive lap, jumping from 13th in qualifying.
Kelly had his shot before Seton, taking advantage of the better track conditions.
Greg Ritter and Paul Morris enjoyed similar benefits. Ritter, flying the lone flag for Dick Johnson Racing in the shootout, shot up the grid to seventh, while Morris improved to 11th.
Marcos Ambrose was out after Seton, destroying his chances of defending his Bathurst shootout title.
“The lap was pretty poor by my own standards,” Ambrose said, sharing the Pirtek Falcon with Paul Weel.
“We have been chasing the car all weekend and think we had a chance to grab pole.”
00 Motorsport’s Craig Lowndes and Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Garth Tander were ninth and tenth respectively. Steven Ellery fell to 12th.
Larry Perkins enjoyed his first shootout in many years with the 13th-fastest lap. Bathurst rookie Max Wilson was two seconds slower than Skaife in 14th.
Seton will now start from 15th, with a broken return line on the heat exchanger blamed for the failure.
Reports are circulating that Seton could be joined by David Besnard in tomorrow's race, replacing Owen Kelly. Besnard's Caltex Falcon won't start the race after crashing in practice yesterday.
An announcement is expected this afternoon.
Top 15 Shootout results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?13/10/2002.MOUN.Q7
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