Craig Baird scored his first pole position in the Carrera Cup today to set up Team VIP Petfoods for a successful season opening round at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.
Despite being the reigning series champion with 10 race wins to his credit, Baird has never started from pole position in the all-Porsche series after a season and a bit in the category. Until now!
Baird only completed eight laps after accidentally hitting the speed limiter button with his pole time set on his seventh lap of the Adelaide street circuit.
The 36-year-old New Zealand driver battled track temperatures over 40 degrees to record his milestone result.
“I had to get the monkey off my back and get a pole position finally, †said Baird. “I’ve been pipped at the last minute too many times.
“Hopefully we’ll get off to another really good start to the season, and hopefully in cooler conditions tomorrow – I feel like I am melting. â€
Team mates Klark Quinn and Tony Quinn didn’t fare quite as well with the 13th and 15th fastest times respectively out of the 21-car field.
Tony is setting himself for the TAG Heuer Carrera Challenge which is an award for all the privateer drivers aged over 30 years.
Out of the drivers eligible for this award Tony was third fastest with a best lap of 1:26.3808.
Aussie Racing Cars champion Paul Kemal will be striving for better days tomorrow after a mid-race electrical problem dropped him back to 22nd.
A fantastic hard charging effort including the fastest race lap of the day (1:34.7794) saw Kemal make up 15 positions to finish in seventh.
This great performance in the space of two laps has kept the reigning series champion in the hunt for a round podium result with two races still to run.
Yesterday’s race one winner James Ward made it two from two with another victory ahead of Ben McCashney and Kyle Clews.
Kemal was philosophical about today’s result.
“I lost all of my electrics on the fourth lap – it was the battery isolator switch that played up, †said Kemal.
“Thankfully I got it sorted pretty quickly and managed to make up quite a few places.
“The car is running great as the lap times show – the fastest lap of the race was my final lap – I’ve just to keep it running. â€
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