Ford Rising Stars Racing

Last weekend’s racing at Wakefield Park near Goulburn in New South Wales saw a capacity field challenge for the second round of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Championships.

The L&H / Auslec / Summit, Ford Rising Stars Racing Team had drivers Michael Caruso and Grant Denyer entered. Caruso had been a clear winner of the first round at Clipsal and Denyer having his first event after missing the Clipsal races due to television commitments.

A positive test day at Sydney’s, Oran Park had preceded the round and both drivers were in a very confident mood.

“We are really looking forward to the weekend however Wakefield Park is a tricky race circuit despite being the smallest and tightest track in the series. Conditions change quickly there making it a real set up challenge for the team”, Michael Caruso said pre event.
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Practice ended with both drivers running fast although in different sessions due to the capacity field being split to create more space on the track. Sixth fastest was Grant and Michael tenth but still to run on green tyres and expecting a significant gain to come.

“It’s really good to be doing laps after such a long break”, a happy Grant Denyer said.

Qualifying saw both drivers disappointed with Caruso tenth and Denyer seventeenth with the team not having got the set up quite right.

To compound Michael Caruso’s disappointment the team was fined and penalised ten grid spots for a pit lane infringement during the session moving him back to position twenty for race one.

“Our team is not only bringing on young drivers but engineers and crew and in these circumstances it’s a very rapid learning curve for everyone”, Team Manager Jim Morton said.

The tight nature of the track and the very competitive nature of the field saw both drivers struggle to make gains in the first race finishing fifteenth and seventeenth.

Race two and a number of set up changes had improved both cars with Caruso moving from fifteenth to seventh and Grant the victim of unusual circumstances. The V8’s are fitted with an external pull switch that allowes officials to externally turn off the cars battery power in the event of a serious accident. The switch is at the back of the bonnet and a bump on the leading edge of the bonnet during the race saw the bonnet pushed back and disarm the cars power.

“Grant quickly realised it was the power going off but by the time he re-armed it and got going he had fallen to the back of the field”, Jim Morton said.

In race three Caruso made a great recovery with a better car set up and finished sixth close behind the next three cars to keep his Championship hopes well and truly alive and in second position.

Changes to Grant Denyer’s car had given him more pace but unfortunately he was turned around by another competitor early in the race.

“The usual statement is that this was a character building weekend but from all our perspectives it was disappointing”, Team Manager Jim Morton said. “We struggled to get a really good balance in the cars like we had at Clipsal and at our test days and this makes it hard on the drivers. By the end of weekend we had it pretty right with Michael setting the second fastest time in the main race and doing it in tight traffic”, he said.

A large contingent of our corporate supporter’s customers and staff were along to cheer on the team. The team’s major partners are Lawrence & Hanson who has forged a reputation as being one of the best distributors to electrical contractors across Australia with over 150 strategically located branches available for contractors to source their needs. Auslec, who services the electrical industrial sector developing strong relationships with some of Australia's largest industrial organisations and Summit Fleet Leasing are one of the leading fleet leasing companies in Australia.