Jim Beam Racing News
Team Beam get a Top End Education
20 June 2009
Motorsport lessons are often hard learned and today Jim Beam Racing has added to their dossier of knowledge through several hard learned lessons. You would be forgiven for thinking that 2009 could already produce an encyclopaedia of knowledge for the team, who, although have been awarded some great achievements this year, seem to be constantly overshadowed by missed opportunities, mechanical failures and incidents that could be best described as unfair. Today was no different.
Practice yesterday became a farce in the Jim Beam Garage with James Courtney's #18 requiring a complete engine replacement. Precautionary checks also brought Steve Johnson's #17 into the garage to ensure that the engine issue with #18 was not reproduced in #17. Once investigated Steve was led back into Pit Lane, but had already lost valuable practice time. With a brand new vehicle for the track this cost the team considerable learning's and track time for data. #18 was then ruled out of practice to facilitate the engine replacement – further adding to the Teams practice nightmare.
Saturday dawned with a bright orange glow, indicating that the day would be perfect for spectators – but a hard day on drivers and their mounts. Tyres were the first consideration with the performance of the new soft compound tyre foremost in everyone's mind. How would the tyre handle the extreme track heat – at times registering upwards of 46 degrees Celsius?
Qualifying began slowly straight out of the garage. Junior complained about the handling of #17 straight out of the sheds. The car wasn't cornering to plan and wrestling the 1.3 tonne beast around the scorching Hidden Valley Track was becoming increasingly difficult with each lap that transpired. James got off to a great start – but any speed first realised vanished from #18 – and the blight that was practice set in for qualifying.
Qualifying mid pack was never in the strategy for the team and the crew worked hard to find the issues that had arisen during the period. Sporting Director Adrian Burgess was sure that the cars had a lot more speed than they were displaying and the crew got to work finding and fine tuning.
The beginning of Race 6 saw some upbeat crew members in the Jim Beam Garage – the hard work across the day had paid off and they were certain that the speed they required was now with them. James would start #18 on the soft compound sprint tyre, and Steve would revert to the original plan of preserving the sprint and running on a partially used hard compound. Two different starts that had expected to produce the same results for both teams, taking into consideration the car set up and weather conditions. Starting from P13 and P 15 the Team had their work cut out for them!
Both James and Steve started the race strongly, with a couple of places being made up almost immediately. #17 still had the handling problems from Practice and the tyres were discovered to be way below par. Far worse off than first thought. James started to carve his way through the field on the soft compound – that showed with the heat, could also endure and rush through the crowd. Quickly making up several places James set to ensure that his positioning would not be compromised via strategies of other teams. He sat tight and waited out the flurry of pit stops for the change.
"We are happy with the result in the end, to finish in 8th position" said Courtney "we could have had a better pit stop, but we managed to use the soft compound for 20 laps, which is saying something in this heat. It puts us in a great position for tomorrow. We have resolved all of the earlier issues and now we have had some practice, can come out even stronger tomorrow".
Steve, meanwhile, could not get a handle on the complete lack of give that his mount was showing. The unforgiving manoeuvres that are required at Hidden Valley were not agreeing with the #17.....and as time wore on Steve started to lose position. But strategy here dictates that the car stay and wait out the mess within the field. A Safety car would almost certainly eventuate, giving Steve the perfect opportunity to bring it home for the team. The plan however did not come to fruition and the much yearned for safety car did not eventuate – leaving Steve and what were figured to be 'bogey' tyres languishing at the back of the pack.
"It was a tough day at the office" explained Steve, "we had major tyre issues, running on tyres that were just not up to scratch. The tyre degradation was huge and Dunlop is looking into what happened. We also discovered that I ran most of the race on a broken left rear shock. It would explain a lot, and shows that the handling was so ferocious for a reason. At least we know now and will fix it overnight. Tomorrow is a whole new day, and I am sure that we have it all in hand now".
Team Sporting Director Adrian Burgess refuses to see today as a negative, instead choosing to add all of the knowledge gained today to the arsenal for the team. "It was not the best day for us, but we kept the cars straight, and also learnt a lot about the vehicles for this type of track. We had set backs during practice, but seriously we tick it up to experience and knowledge. Tomorrow sees us hit the track an educated team......That can only work in our favour".
Jim Beam Racing finished 8th and 17th in today's Race, and is looking forward to getting back out onto the track tomorrow to put all of today's education into practice.
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