Over a tight, slippery, dusty prologue track Team Toyo has produced results. Toyo drivers occupy first, second and fourth position in X2WD.
Brad Gallard leads the trophy truck class in a threatening position, just 10 seconds off poll. Greg Gartner, despite a persistent voltage issue grabbed second in class. Hayden Bentley in the Racer Engineering #418 trophy truck has pulled in fourth in class and 19th outright.
Danny Brown came in at ninth outright with a clean performance bringing the #42 Pro-Class buggy in comfortably.
A recently graded prologue track made for a loose and slippery top surface, with all teams praising the Toyo Open Country M/T-R’s grip for giving them the confidence to push harder.
Brad Gallard logged a 5:13 over the eight-kilometre course putting the PKMS #454 fifth outright and in a striking position for tomorrows race.
The #454’s sister car, the Geisers Bros. #496 with Scott Modistach at the helm ran a clean 5:51, taking a more conservative approach.
“Prologue was clean, very skatey out there, there were no nice berms left so you couldn’t rail anything,” said Gallard.
“We’re first truck in and the only truck in the top 10, so in those conditions it was a top result.”
With a great start, Gallard is on track for a podium result.
“Take it as it comes day by day and keep charging. Hopefully we turn it into a really good weekend,” he said.
“We certainly have some fast cars in front of us but we are looking forward to chasing them down. We’ll get through 100k’s where the dust is really bad and out to where it gets rougher, that’s where we can we can charge some down.”
Danny Brown is eighth in Pro-Class buggy with a 5:17. The top ten spot will see the #42 enjoy a one minute dust gap for tomorrows Alice to Finke run.
“We had a clean run, we pushed but were a little bit conservative. The track was super slippery so we dropped the pressures beforehand for some traction and found plenty of grip.”
Even on the short track better suited to buggies, the prologue circuit was hard going.
“It’s all pretty close time wise, it’s really easy to overshoot a corner and lose time. It’s a challenging tight course, you don’t want to make any mistakes,” said Danny.
“The dust gap will be a massive advantage. We just want to get down there and with the dust passing will be hard. We have some markers we want to hit time wise, so as long we can keep on schedule we should be pretty good.”
Greg Gartner is the second X2WD across the line and 11th outright. The big Ford pulled a 5.20, despite a voltage issue creating drama.
“The truck kept cutting out, we had a good run halfway around but at about the three kilometre mark the engine started going. We were coming into a corner when it cut out and the truck went up on two wheels. We nearly rolled!”
Spectators remarked that even up on two wheels, Gartner refused to lift off the throttle.
“We didn’t lift, we couldn’t!” Gartner said. “We were pretty committed so we drove out of it and put it straight into the whoops on the limiter and kept going.
Gartner and the GGM team are tracking the voltage issue and will be ready to launch hard tomorrow morning.
“We’re pretty confident if we push hard we can make some time up, the truck feels comfortable, so we will have a red hot go.”
Hayden Bentley in the #419 trophy tracks maiden voyage ran a 5:28, claiming fourth in X2WD and 19th outright.
“We will have to put up with that, would have liked to be further up,” said Bentley. “It’s a work in progress, I am still getting used to the characteristics of the truck”.
“A bit more seat time will get our pace up, today was my fist drive in it,” he said.
Unfortunately, 2014 Finke Ironman Billy Geddes did not start. Niggling engine problems evolved into a blown motor. The custom nature of the motor meant it was unable to be replaced prior to this mornings kick off. Matthew Kittle also failed to finish prologue.
Pushing hard through the course in the #23 pro buggy Kittle was having a dream run; until the notorious last corner.
“I ended up on my lid” says Matthew. “I think I was pushing a bit too hard in the corner and overcorrected. It was only a very soft roll over, no damage.”
PKMS will apply to have Matthew seeded at an as yet unknown location through the field and will fight through the dust to make up position.
With hours to go until race o’clock, we offer unto our Toyo shod teams the sound advice of Billy Geddes… UPPA!
Full prologue results and timings here.
