Whitley and Cooper Turning Heads with SsangYong Super Ute.

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WHITLEY AND COOPER TURNING HEADS WITH SSANGYONG SUPER UTE

June 7, 2016

Alexandra Whitley

photo credit: Simon Chapman

It was a week of late nights and uncertainty in preparation for the Mahindra North Island Endurance series in Taupo, but we pulled together and made the start line and came away with an outstanding third place in class for the weekend in the SsangYong Super Ute co-driving with Deon Cooper.

The SsangYong Dealer team put in a lot of work to transform a standard SsangYong Actyon Sport Racing Ute into a 300hp, TTI sequential, turbo SsangYong Super Ute with Brembo brakes and slick tyres. Friday practice saw teething problems with Deon only completing a session and myself only 3 laps.

On Saturday morning we were happy with how the car went in qualifying and couldn't wait to get strapped in for the race start.

Unfortunately foggy weather conditions saw the start of the race begin under safety car where Deon sat behind in single form for over 2 hours before I hopped in getting 15 minutes of hard racing fast racing, then back to safety car again to complete the race. We finished 3rd place in class which is brilliant for the first outing in the brand new car, especially when 3 days before race day it was in a thousand pieces and we weren’t sure if we would even make it.

There is a hell of a lot of people have worked endlessly behind the scenes and many late nights to make the weekend all come together,

I can’t thank you all enough for your dedication and input and a special thanks to Deon Cooper for the opportunity. I know there are some improvements to be made with the car and also within myself, it has been a massive learning curve and experience this weekend, The SsangYong Dealer Team and I are really looking forward to round 2 at Hampton Downs in 2 weeks making a few improvements and changes to make it to the top step and see what this Super Ute can really do.

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