Whitley’s Winton Wrap up - Alexandra Whitley

blog post

WHITLEY'S WINTON WRAP UP

September 1, 2019

Alexandra Whitley

photo credit: Daniel Kalisz Photogrpahy

Over the weekend of the 31st of August we made the trek to Winton Motorsport Park in Victoria, for the fifth round of the Australian TCR series. Winton is located a few hours outside of Melbourne in Ned Kelly Country, not too far from the famous Glenrowan pub! We had great weather all weekend, learnt another new track and mixed it with the boys.

It’s always great to get back behind the wheel of the Actron Air Volkswagen TCR and I was looking forward to getting another new track under my belt. The schedule this round was a bit different, which saw us run a media session on Friday. This gave us the chance to run in new brake pads which meant we could make the most of our practice on Saturday. Unfortunately my practice was cut short when a front wheel bearing collapsed and the front axle broke! As the MSR team fixed the car, I studied video footage and Data from Jason’s car trying to learn the tracks ins and outs.

Due to only having driven a few laps in practice, I hadn’t quite got my head around the track when we came to qualifying. As my speed gained I wasn’t able to get the most out of the Michelin tyre and we qualified near the back in 18th.

I spent a few hours again going over data and getting pointers from Jason Bright as he’s had over 20 years of racing at Winton compared to my 20 laps! I was confident we would move forward in the race and we did. I got hit in the first few turns which put me back to last, but we had great speed through the tight turns and I made back the ground and slowly moved forward. I soon caught onto the back of Leanne tander; but with the power and straight line speed of the Audi, I struggled to get by. As the race went on our brake fade was getting worse. I over shot my braking, locked up and hit the back of Leanne’s car. I slowed to re-address while others drove by getting a free pass. We finished 13th place, after being given a 30 second penalty for hitting Leanne.

Starting from 13th for race 2, I didn’t get my best start going backwards again. I raced hard with Molly Taylor and eventually got by her, I made great progress and quickly pulled away, however I was too far back now to catch the others finishing 14th. We had a really quick turn a round for our next race. The team made some minor adjustments and we rolled out for our final race for the weekend.

I got a ripper start this time and just drove off the line right up through the pack! The adjustments the team made helped me early on and soon I was fighting for 10th place. Everyone had their elbows out and the passing was rough.

I was hustled a few times and lost some momentum, I was pushed out wide and was moved back to 14th, the car’s handeling really started to go downhill and thats where we finished the race.

It was great to be further up the pack racing hard with the rest of the drivers, the Volkswagen likes the tight turns, but struggles on the straights. It was another weekend of learning and it was also great to be able to share that for fathers day with my dad. Again a huge thanks to everyone behind the scene who made this weekend possible.

blog post