Wakefield 300

The team decided to enter two vehicles for the weekend. With the V8 UTE RACER HQ Holden being entered in the annual Hopwood 100 Race for HQs on the Saturday and The V8 UTE RACER VZ Commodore Ute in the Wakefield 300km race on the Sunday. The team’s two drivers Kieren and Garry Pilkington were going to have a task ahead of them in the 35 + deg heat over the weekend.

After all the Qualifying Races were run and done the V8 UTE RACER HQ Started the Hopwood 100km race on the front row of the grid. After a good start to the event they were in third position at half distance. But with the leader starting to get away to a big lead they decided to do their compulsory pit stop for a driver change. Garry handed the car over to Kieren with the second fastest driver change of anyone. But to no avail as the fastest driver change was by the leader of the race so the gap to the leader increased to around 30+ secs as Kieren Began his stint at the wheel. Kieren quickly moved into second position and started the tough task of running down the leader. But with that big a gap he couldn’t quite chase the winner down but he came very close getting the gap back to 3 secs by the end of the race and setting the fastest lap along the way so a great result for the V8 UTE RACER HQ Holden with second position for the 2009 Hopwood 100.

As Sunday Dawned the V8 UTE RACER TEAM were feeling Quite Confident of a solid Result in the Wakefield 300. After Qualifying in 11^th position to start the race in a strong 24 car Grid. Sadly however in the morning warm-up the VZ Commodore Ute developed a problem with 3^rd gear and had a gearbox failure. Due to the lack of time from the warm-up to the race start there was insufficient time to have a new gearbox fitted and the V8 Ute Racer Team had to withdraw the car before the race start.

The V8 Ute Racer team would like to thank the following people for their continued support of the V8 Ute Racer race team

Western Brakes

Norwest Engine Centre

Western EFI & Auto Electrical

Stuart Spry, Kathy Spry & Kathryn Funnell