The Australian Sports/GT Intermarque Championship 2007

Round 6 Calder Park Raceway 29/30 September ‘07

Championship Result for XCARZ Team

The XCARZ/Q Tec/Capital Corp Finance/Hydraulink/Just Nice Cars Porsche race team made the trip to Calder Park for the final round knowing that a strong showing would be needed to enable Scott to retain his championship standing even though this track favoured the more powerful cars.

Practice
Friday practice took place under grey skies accompanied by a cold wind and occasional rain squalls and so, not surprisingly, lap times were not overly quick. Saturday practice began under somewhat less wintry conditions although still cold and windy, and with the XCARZ Porsche now wearing it’s race rubber, Scott managed a to record a lap time of 1min 3.8604secs, just half a second slower than his previous best at this track which, under those conditions, was a satisfying result.

Qualifying
In the first session of qualifying Scott improved that time further to 1min 3.4953secs, now less than 2 tenths of a second away from his previous best, and so it was decided to preserve the condition of the race tyres by not taking part in the second qualifying session.

Race 1
Scott started race 1 from grid position 11, and after another of his rocket starts was in 9^th position after one lap, 8^th by lap 3, and then in spite of a car that was understeering badly, held that position until the closing stages of the race when the Vidovic’s Cobra blasted by down the straight. During the course of the race Scott bettered his previous best lap a total of 4 times re-setting the mark at 1min 2.9914secs. 

Race 2
Race 2 was another 10 lap event and with changes made to the XCARZ Porsche to improve the handling Scott circulated for the entire distance in 10^th place and although the car was still not nice to drive, twice managed to clock 1min 3.12secs.

Race 3
More work by the crew had the car ready for the 24 lap final race of the season with Scott needing to bag some points to retain his championship placing. Starting from grid 10 Scott moved up to 9^th at the start then settled into race pace, moving up another place on lap 5 and by mid race was closing on the cars immediately ahead. When the Porsches of Loughman and Cooper had a coming together, Scott was elevated to 7^th place but the resultant debris had cut the left front tyre on the XCARZ Porsche. From there the race became one of survival as Scott continued to circulate until race end finishing in 9^th place, the last of the cars still running.

Summary
By completing the last 7 laps of the last race of the 2007 Championship with a deflating front tyre, while travelling at sufficient pace so as to avoid having the officials call him off the track, but not so fast as to have the tyre fly apart, Scott earned enough points to ensure 3rd place in Open Class and 2^nd place in Class A of the 2007 Australian Sports & GT Intermarque Championship.

Scott is extremely grateful to those who help make this season possible. 

Q TEC Fire System Specialists
Hydraulink Fluid Connectors
Capital Finance & Leasing
Just Nice Cars