Hi

A lot has been happening since I last wrote.  I have been travelling a lot and have had an interesting couple of months.

Since Winton I have had two rounds, one at Hidden Valley in Darwin and the last round was the Townsville street race.  We have had some good results, finishing fourth for the round at Darwin despite battling with a miss fire for two of the three races.

The ‘Ice Break’ race transporter headed straight across from Darwin to Townsville where the Ute was prepared for battel!  We did the general prep at Tony Ireland Holden and eventually found the cause of the miss in a loose injector plug.  I was looking forward to the challenge of learning a new track and gaining some good results.  Friday practice ran smoothly and we sat midfield after practice session one.  I made a minor change to the Ute but concentrated mainly on getting my head around the new circuit.  I was happy enough to elevate myself to seventh fastest and the second fastest Holden after practice two.  I was coming to grips with the technical and challenging street track and was happy with the progress we had made.  It was Saturday morning and time to Qualifying where we made another jump and put the ’Ice Break, Real Coffee, Ice Cold’ Holden Ute on grid three for race one.  Race one wasn’t ideal after making contact with another Ute which bent a steering arm and threw the toe out of place.  I finished sixth so still gained solid points.

My bad luck hadn’t ended there.  After a good start, I was gutted when I got hit in the left rear at the apex of the turn onto the start/finish straight, spinning me around and into the path of the entire field.  The damaged put us out of the race.

The ’Ice Break’ crew did an awesome job with the limited time available between races two and three on Sunday to get the Ute straightened out and ready to go for the final race.  With a tough run in the second race, adding my points together for the weekend saw me start from grid eleven.  I was fired up and ready to salvage back all that I could.  I got away cleanly rounding up a couple of guys off the start and pushed on hard in the opening laps passing five Utes.  I then found myself with clear track chasing down the leading group.  The Ute felt good as I pulled out the fastest race laps till I caught the group with a lap to run.  A big pass out of turn two saw me move into fifth place.   It was a good way to end a challenging weekend and hold our position in the overall championship standings.

Since Townsville I went along to the IGA Distribution Expo where ’Ice Break’ had their V8 Holden Ute on display.  It was a good three days meeting a lot of people, signing posters and filling everyone in on our progress in the V8 Ute Championship.

I am now in New Zealand looking to renew last years sponsorship deals and introduce some new partners to the benefits of being involved with our team.  The NZ V8 Ute series will step up a notch now we have moved onto the tier one program.  I hope to run Ash Cairns’ V8 Falcon Ute again and defend my title.

Thanks,

CP

A lot has been happening since I last wrote.  I have been travelling a lot and have had an interesting couple of months.

Since Winton I have had two rounds, one at Hidden Valley in Darwin and the last round was the Townsville street race.  We have had some good results, finishing fourth for the round at Darwin despite battling with a miss fire for two of the three races.