BETTER RESULT IN RACE TWO FOR AUSDRILL FORD RISING STARS RACING AT HAMILTON 400
20/04/2008

Ausdrill Ford rising stars Racing Team, Driver, Michael Patrizi finished a strong twenty first in his very first full V8 Supercar race today.

“We were very happy with Michael’s progress again today with him showing excellent race pace and missing a top fifteen finish through a few little on track incidents… not an uncommon thing for street races”, FRSR Commercial Manager, Kim White said. “Our game plan has always been to get our driver slowly up to the cars race winning potential. We know this will take a little while with this being only his second meeting in a touring car”.

This was Ausdrill FRSR’s first race compulsory, pit stop and the crew made up of David Paterson, Jodie Askew, Andrew Griffith, Jake Dempsey, Sarah Panayi, and Phillip Rockstroh did a great stop to get Michael turned around quickly. Under the pressure of their first race stop the team performed faultlessly.

“Having worked many times before with young inexperienced drivers we are setting him some fairly simple goals”, Team Owner Jim Morton said. “Every meeting we expect Michael we expect Michael will whittle away at the gap in the times from his to the fastest race times. In this race Michael lapped at within 1.1 seconds of race winner Garth Tander’s times. In fact his best time was twentieth fastest and well within our expectations at this point”, he said.

For this weekend the team has again been assisted by two apprentices from their Flagship Commercial Partner, Ausdrill Pty Ltd. Chris McGrath and Luke Newling from Kalgoorlie and Perth respectively.

“At each event through the year two Ausdrill apprentices will fly from WA to be part of the race team for the weekend”, FRSR Commercial Manager Kim White said today. “Not only are Ausdrill on board with the team as its Flagship Commercial Partner in 08 but tagging one of their internal promotions to match the FRSR ethic of providing training and mentoring opportunities for the young people”, he said. “Chris and Luke have been sharing the crew duties with the team over the weekend