First Mountain Climb A Successful One For Smith

Newcastle’s (NSW) Greg Smith was “over the moon” with his first V8 Supercar  appearance on the infamous Mount Panorama Bathurst circuit  during the sixth and penultimate round of the Holden Performance Driving Centre (HPDC) series last weekend (October 6 - 9) aboard his # 86 Fujitsu Air Conditioning sponsored AU Falcon.

Smith said he loved the unique challenges of this race track, explaining how each corner has its own personality.

“I had a taste of it all complete with a very surprised large gray kangaroo in turn two at the top of mountain straight whilst doing 150km/h.” said Smith. “I could see poor Skippy’s face going “What the?” as it went for a big change in direction and fell over in the process.”

Smith was also relieved that he wasn’t involved in the any incidents that littered the Mount Panorama circuit over the weekend.

“Most importantly I did not crash,” expressed a relieved Smith. “There were many collisions which could have taken me out, as typically Bathurst does. My favourite “Houdini escape” was in our Race 2 on Saturday during the light rain.”

 Smith was coming down the mountain into the dipper and suddenly found one car into the wall, then a second car braked and slipped off the track into him, then bounced back to collect a third car.

“I kept a cool head and did not touch the brake and with a well timed sideways slide found a gap,” explained Smith. “It is actually not possible to stop a car there, even in the dry.  I did have one big advantage in this race by deciding to run wet tyres whilst all my rivals stayed out on their slicks.”

Smith was at that stage in race two running 15th and was achieving his plan to keep moving forward in race two after starting 20th from his race one achievement. However, the crashes and restarts lost a substantial amount time and as a consequence the race was abandoned.

Overall the introduction to “The Mountain” was extremely successful for the Greg Smith Motorsport team, and began with qualifying 23rd out of 26 starters with a best lap 2min 22 seconds, which was within 10% of the No1 car. There is a 15% cutoff for qualifying for the main races.

Again Smith expressed “This year has been a dream come true and a big thank you to all my supporters, crew, DJR (Dick Johnson Racing) and especially my dedicated wife Sharon who shares my passion for race cars. We are all looking forward to our second year in V8s with this years learning under our belt.”

Currently Smith is placed 19th in the HPDC series point standings with a total of 400 points.

The next appearance for the GSM team will be for Bigpond Finale at Phillip Island Raceway in Victoria on November 25 – 27 where the final round of the HPDC series will be staged.

GREG SMITH  THANKS HIS  VALUED SPONSORS:

FUJITSU AIRSTAGE INVERTER MULTI AIR CONDITIONING

NEWCASTLE BUSINESSES:
CHURCH AIR CONDITIONING
MAMIC SMASH REPAIRS     
SIGN WAVE SIGNS
GAZAS SPORTSWEAR   
HARDY SPICER
H & BP PRINTING
CDA CONST. PRODUCTS  

RELEASE BY:    DANIEL POWELL – REDLINE MEDIA

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