HARD WORK ALWAYS WINS

blog post

June 29, 2017

Alexandra Whitley

photo credit: Matt Smith Photography

Round 2 of the North Island Endurance Series was over the weekend of the 24th of June at the newly improved Hampton Downs MotorSport Park in North Waikato.

The weather didn’t know what it wanted to do as we battled with the uncertainty of rain or shine all weekend. I didn’t have a drive for the weekend and had planned to crew for the SsangYong Dealer Team, but I was fortunate enough to have been rewarded for my hard work and teamed up with Rick Cooper in his 302 Boss Mustang!

Over the past month I had been working up to 80 hour weeks at the Fieldays event with SsangYong and LDV New Zealand. A lot goes on behind the scenes and I got to experience this first hand and be a part of the success they had over the massive 4 day event. Deon and Rick thanked me for my hard work by offering to race their Ford GT40 in the 1 hour on the condition that the weather was fine. I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Taupo helping to prep the GT40 and SsangYong Super Ute, checking the weather radar every hour! Unfortunately, it looked like rain for the weekend, so Rick offered to team up with him in the Boss instead.

Friday practice was tricky as I had to learn a new car, which was left hand drive, on a wet and busy track and only had a couple of sessions to do so.

By the second session I was feeling more comfortable. Saturday morning we rolled out for qualifying Rick went out first onto the greasy half wet track, but pulled back into the pits 2 laps later as the alternator had failed. We rushed to replace this in time for the race start only half an hour away. Neil and Jason were fast on the tools and were able to swap this over for a new one at lighting speed.

As we didn’t qualify we started 34th on the grid from 36 cars, we both had our work cut out for us today! Rick started the race making his way through the field passing multiple cars each lap! The rain then started to fall and there was a safety car so he took this opportunity to hand the Boss over to me. I jumped in as the boys bolted the wets on and we were back in the race.

I pushed forward but the rain had stopped and the track was drying out the wet tyres were just getting too hot and the times were dropping, so we made the call to change back to slicks.

One lap later the skies opened up again and it pored so once again we went back in for wets. We got the tyres right this time as is rained until the finish. The one hour was stopped short as there was multiple car pileup on the main straight. Unfortunately the weather just caught us out and we made some wrong calls over the race with tyres and went a few laps down, we finished 23rd overall and 10th in our class.

This was a fantastic opportunity for me as I was able to learn another car and gain seat time and experience. I cannot thank Deon and Rick enough for trusting me to get behind the wheel of their cars and give it everything. I hope to have the opportunity to steer the Ford GT40 in the near future and I am really looking forward to jumping back into the SsangYong Super Ute at the next Endurance Round at Pukekohe next month!

I am working hard, training harder and striving for the next opportunity!

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