Friday practice was dry for a while and Tom did some extremely fast laps within 2 seconds of the existing F5000 lap record which was excellent as he was still on very old tyres and we were adjusting settings etc all the time to gain more speed.
Saturday ... it rained all morning so qualifying was conducted on a very wet track which for a 550+ horsepower big race car was a handful but he still managed 2nd fastest time so all he could do was hope for no more rain.
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| Above left: Tom in the marshalling grid for Race 3 at SMP/HSRCA Historics 30th June |
Race 1 for the afternoon as a breeze arrived and blew some of the black clouds away so fifteen minutes before Race 2 he elected to fit non grooved "slick" tyres as most of the track appeared to have a dry race line but the Clerk of Course black flagged him on lap 3 for making this decision without prior consent and Tom was sent to the "sin bin" and told he must start Race 2 from the pit lane exit after the field had gone even though he was running 2nd at the time.
Race 2 on Sunday saw Tom carve his way through the field on "wet" grooved tyres again back up to 2nd outright but the track was still wet from many heavy downpours so he would have to settle for a front row grid position in Race 3.
Race 3 was back onto non treaded slicks (with Clerk of Courses permission) due to a nearly dry race track and the rain had abated Tom simply blasted of the starting line and lapped all but one car (in 2nd place) and again got within a couple of seconds of the lap record ... a great outright 1st place considering there were still puddles and wet patches all around the circuit.
Next race meeting will be Muscle Car Masters August 31st where F5000 are featuring also with many NZ entries followed closely by Sandown Park V8 Supercar meeting where F5000 have been invited to attend so this inaugural SMP historic meeting has been a valuable exercise in sorting out the car (and driver) for even bigger and better things with the Chevron in the future.
Cheers
TEAM TOM
For more information about Tom head to www.tomtweedie.com or search for 'Team Tom - Tom Tweedie Motorsport' on Facebook.
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