Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing mounts Winton recovery
REVIEW: Karl Reindler Racing, Winton Motor Raceway
V8 Supercars Rnd#10/11 (May 20-22)
23 May, 2011
Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing's [FDSR] Karl Reindler was the man of the moment on Friday as Supercar fans across the globe took a deep inward breath as they waited to see if the now notorious Barbagallo incident would affect the popular West Australian's performance - they needn't have worried..
Following the opening practice session, two things became immediately clear; one, Karl was suffering no ill effects from the burns he sustained at Barbagallo, and two, the team had done a brilliant job preparing Karl's 2010 mount for duty ahead of the weekend's two races.
"My hands gave me no trouble at all, in fact I hardly even noticed my burns and I was having a good crack out there," Karl admitted after Friday's four practice sessions. "I came off this morning having a crack so I'm definitely leaning on it!
"I didn't put the lap together at the end, which is reflective of the car's first day back since Homebush. It's hard to compare the car from Perth with this one. It doesn't feel like the same car at all, but the tracks are very different. It's definitely a promising race car."
Karl's legion of fans weren't the only ones breathing a sigh of relief, team-boss Brad Jones too was impressed with the way in which the whole Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing team had recovered from Barbagallo.
"This is the first time I've seen Karl since Perth and I can't believe how he's recovered," Jones said. "You can still clearly see where he's burnt but it hasn't seemed to affect him at all in the car.
"I had second-degree burns and it took forever to come good. It's amazing how the treatment has come forward over such a short space of time."
Despite the intensive media attention, Karl and his crew quickly settled into the job at hand, and began fine-tuning the setup of the #21 Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing Commodore to improve it ahead of Saturday's qualifier for race ten in the Championship Series.
Ultimately Karl qualified 26th, which didn't look particularly competitive till you quantified the fact that he was just a second off pole man Craig Lowndes, and only two tenths off team-mate Jason Bargwanna, who claimed a podium finish last time out in Perth!
"The car just feels a bit lazy, it is nice to drive but just doesn't have any great track speed at the moment. We will see what the other boys are doing [Bright/Bargwanna] and make some changes for the race to hopefully make it a bit better."
With Barbagallo's start-line incident playing in the back of everyone's minds, the field met the starter for the opening 40-lap race at Winton, where the wide run into turn one narrows providing plenty of opening lap action.
Fortunately, whilst everyone else was worried about Karl's start, he wasn't, the FDSR Commodore pilot rocketing off the start to be 20th in the opening laps and locked in behind fellow West Australian Dean Fiore. Unfortunately Karl was unable to find his way past the Ford driver, and lost valuable track position as a result.
Running a long opening stint, Karl pitted after the midway point of the race, but lost time with a wheel nut issue which dropped him back to 24th. On returning to the track he stormed past Kelly Racing's David Reynolds but again became caught behind the very wide Fiore Falcon. That put Karl on the offensive, and after four laps he forced his way past and into pursuit of Steve Owen, the very man who formed the second half of the Barbagallo equation, displacing the Victorian with two laps to go to claim 20th at the flag.
"We're happy just to be on the grid at this round. It's an old car and we're going to get a new chassis at the next round so we're experimenting like you would at a non-championship round.
," Karl said post-race.
"Our car was strong but not in the places I needed to get past Fiore unfortunately. It made it very difficult but I got past him at the end and we had very good pace. When you're racing people like that, attacking and trying to pull off deep braking manoeuvres, you chew the tyres up a lot."
After a long night tweaking setup, Karl was ready to go for race 11, but was foiled in qualifying by the changeable Winton conditions.
"A rain shower hit the track four minutes prior to the start of the session and lasted a couple of minutes so the first half of the session was on a drying surface," Karl confirmed. "The car changes ended up creating some front brake locking and understeer that we couldn't dial out during the session."
The result, P26 again.
Another strong start saw Karl take advantage of the lap two incident which brought out the safety car, elevating him to P19 for the restart. A tight battle then began between Karl and the Falcons of Jonathon Webb and Alex Davison before team-mate Bargwanna joined the mix inadvertently forcing Karl wide on lap 14 and back into the clutches of sparring partner Fiore. The duo ran through the turns 6-7-8 complex side-by-side two laps later before contact cut down Karl's left front tyre forcing an early stop for a replacement and investigative work on the steering.
Karl battled hard to return himself to the lead lap, with a good turn of speed mid-race [Karl's fastest lap was less than four tenths off the fastest lap of the race], but was unable to get the lap back in the end, being forced to settle for 23rd at the completion of the 67-laps.
"It was a weekend of mixed emotions," Karl admitted afterwards. "I am really pleased that I was able to be back in the car for this weekend. The whole BJR team have worked tirelessly to get the car ready in time as have I in my recovery.
"To be honest I am disappointed with the results this weekend as it doesn't reflect
where we should be. We get a new car for Darwin in three weeks time which will
be great as it is a lot closer in spec to the cars that the other boys are driving currently.
"I'll be training really hard too over the next few weeks to get my fitness level up to peak as Darwin is notoriously hot and very draining on the drivers."
The Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing team now turns it's attention to building their latest acquisition (Walkinshaw Racing Chassis WR008) in time for the next round of the 2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series, the Skycity Triple Crown at Darwin from June 17.
2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series - Race 10,
Winton Motor Raceway (May 21, 2011)
1. Jamie Whincup (Holden) - 40 laps
2. Lee Holdsworth (Holden)
3. Steven Johnson (Ford)
4. Rick Kelly (Holden)
5. Paul Dumbrell (Ford)
6. Alex Davison (Ford)
7. Jason Bright (BJR Holden)
8. James Courtney (Holden)
9. Mark Winterbottom (Ford)
10. Fabian Coulthard (Holden)
20. Karl Reindler (Fair Dinkum Sheds Holden Commodore)
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2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series Series - Race 11,
Winton Motor Raceway (May 21, 2011)
1. Jason Bright (BJR Holden) - 67 laps
2. Jamie Whincup (Holden)
3. Garth Tander (Holden)
4. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford)
5. Fabian Coulthard (Holden)
6. Michael Caruso (Holden)
7. Craig Lowndes (Holden)
8. Steven Johnson (Ford)
9. James Moffat (Ford)
10. Steve Owen (Holden)
23. Karl Reindler (Fair Dinkum Sheds Holden Commodore)
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2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series (points after race 11)
1. Jamie Whincup (Holden) - 1234 points
2. Craig Lowndes (Holden) - 972
3. Garth Tander (Holden) - 935
4. Jason Bright (BJR Holden) - 920
5. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford) - 913
6. Rick Kelly (Holden) - 887
7. Alex Davison (Ford) - 825
8. Will Davison (Ford) - 813
9. Steven Johnson (Ford) - 808
10. Mark Winterbottom (Ford) - 797
25. Karl Reindler (Fair Dinkum Sheds Holden Commodore) - 414
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2011 V8 Supercar Championship Series Calendar Rnd#1 - Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi (February 12) - KRR DNF
Rnd#2 - Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi (February 13) - KRR 11th
Rnd#3 - Clipsal 500, Adelaide (March 19) - KRR 19th
Rnd#4 - Clipsal 500, Adelaide (March 20) - KRR 17th
Non-champ. - Australian F1 Grand Prix (March 24-27) - 18th / 19th / 15th
Rnd#5 - ITM 400, Hamilton, NZ (April 16) - KRR 17th
Rnd#6 - ITM 400, Hamilton, NZ (April 17) - KRR 13th
Rnd#7 - Trading Post Perth Challenge (April 30) - KRR 7th
Rnd#8 - Trading Post Perth Challenge (May 1) - KRR DNF
Rnd#9 - Trading Post Perth Challenge (May 1) - KRR DNS
Rnd#10 - Winton Motor Raceway, VIC (May 21) - 20th
Rnd#11 - Winton Motor Raceway, VIC (May 22) - 23rd
Rnd#12 - Skycity Triple Crown, Darwin (June 18)
Rnd#13 - Skycity Triple Crown, Darwin (June 19)
Rnd#14 - Sucrogen Townsville 400 (July 9)
Rnd#15 - Sucrogen Townsville 400 (July 10)
Rnd#16 - City of Ipswich 300 (August 20)
Rnd#17 - City of Ipswich 300 (August 21)
Rnd#18 - L 500, Phillip Island, VIC (September 18)
Rnd#19 - Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, NSW (October 9)
Rnd#20 - Armor All Gold Coast 600 (October 22)
Rnd#21 - Armor All Gold Coast 600 (October 23)
Rnd#22 - Falken Tasmania Challenge (November 12)
Rnd#23 - Falken Tasmania Challenge (November 13)
Rnd#24 - Norton 360 Sandown Challenge (November 19)
Rnd#25 - Norton 360 Sandown Challenge (November 20)
Rnd#26 - Sydney Telstra 500 (December 3)
Rnd#27 - Sydney Telstra 500 (December 4)