GARLAND CLOSES THE GAP IN AUSSIE RACING CARS TITLE RACE

MEDIA RELEASE/Kody Garland Racing – Photos: Velocity Magazine and Supplied

Kody Garland has immediately clawed back lost ground in the battle for the Aussie Racing Cars Championship with another consistently fast weekend at The Bend Motorsport Park.

The MTA NSW driver started the weekend well, earning a front row start in what was an incredibly tricky qualifying session. On Friday the category ran a new spoiler on the roof, designed to increase draft and competition, but at a Tailem Bend circuit which is highly susceptible to the wind it instead created a plethora of instability problems.

In the opening race of the weekend, featuring the new spoiler, Garland got himself to the lead but was a sitting duck to the heightened slipstream down the main straight and slipped back to second with two laps to go.

SEE OUR FULL THE BEND 500 GALLERY HERE

SEE OUR FULL THE BEND 500 GALLERY HERE

The spoilers were removed ahead of Sunday’s two races, a move welcomed by Garland who had not felt comfortable across Friday’s running. A typical race ensued with a tight spread across the leading group, Garland still managing a straight-line deficit, battling his way to a third-place finish.

Garland’s late braking abilities allowed him to make a break for the lead in the final race of the weekend, but his attempts to stretch a gap were hamstrung by a Safety Car intervention. Despite restarting as late as possible, minimising the on-throttle time before turn one, Garland was still swamped and demoted to fourth by the time the field reached the first corner. The title combatant would finish the race in fourth, but his results across the weekend were enough to earn a runner-up result in the round points.

With Garland’s main title rival scoring a rare DNF in Race 1, Garland has been able to largely recover from his Sandown misfortune (accounting for the drop round format), setting the stage for the final two rounds of the series.

Kody Garland
“It was a good to be back on the podium, and a solid series points weekend for us. We didn’t get the win, but we got the next best thing and a solid number of points.

“We’re on for the series again, which is great because after what happened last round we thought we were out. We just need to find a little bit more, we’re still down engine wise but we’re chipping away at it.

“I wasn’t opposed to the idea of it (the spoiler), to create drag and better racing, but the way it was implemented made the cars quite dangerous to drive this weekend. Any gust of wind would catch and it was highly unpredictable. A bit more refining is needed, but I’m not opposed to future implementations.

“We won last year on the Gold Coast, I’m pretty keen to get back there next month and see what we can do.”

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