Pollicina Motorsports have achieved another milestone in its impressive CV, finishing seventh outright in the inaugural Dial Before You Dig Australian Six Hour out of a field of 25 cars. In a race that saw only five cars retire from the race and no Safety Cars deployed, a rarity in the modern day motorsport world, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII driven by Jim Pollicina, Gerry Murphy and Anthony Loscialpo circulated around Eastern Creek at a consistent pace that kept them out of trouble throughout the entire six hours.
Starting from ninth position, Pollicina started the race and got to the first 90 minutes with the fuel tank almost dry before pitting for their first stop. Despite practicing the night before and developing a high standard personally, the first stop was a disaster, when the jack they were using failed and dropped the car off the jack. After three attempts to jack up the car, a replacement jack was hurriedly found, but in the process, a crewmember hurt his foot when it landed on him in amidst of the panic that had set in.
Despite this minor setback, they managed to re-focus on the job at hand. For the rest of the race, Gerry Murphy and Anthony Loscialpo fired off consistent and quick lap times, predominantly in the low 1m50s bracket and were for two thirds of the race within range of the Jim Hunter Subaru and the John Bowe GWS BMW. Pollicina jumped back into the car in the final 30 minutes of the race to finish the event and finish they did. Completing 189 laps, six laps down on the race winners, Stuart Kostera and Warren Luff for Team Mitsubishi Ralliart, the trio and the Lancer Evo VIII finished seventh outright and sixth in Class A for High Performance All Wheel Drive.
Jim Pollicina: "We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, including my mechanics, refuelling crew and drivers. I guess that is what it is all about, the team camaraderie. The car was bullet proof all weekend and it was capable of doing times in qualifying pace during the last half hour of the race. The crew performed to an exceptional standard, the drivers brought the car home without a scratch. I cannot ask for more from the team with this package.”
Anthony Loscialpo: "i'm really happy. Our pace was a couple of second off our pace that did in qualifying, which was good compared to everyone else. I'm pretty happy with how everything went, to be honest. We'd consider ourselves as privateers, so for how Jim has oeprated all weekend, he's done well."
Gerry Murphy: "It was hard work, but the car by the end of the race was better that it ever was in terms of handling, which was bizarre. But the car overall was great. If you compare our times throughout the race, we were only a couple of seconds off the pace of the professional guys. After having a down day in qualifying, I was unsure if I was going match it with Jim and Anthony at race pace, but it turned out alright. Anthony did a stellar job and Jim had a great start in the race. It really was a great experience."
Jim, Anthony and Gerry would like to thank Dean Lillie at Greg Murphy Racing for assisting them throughout the weekend. They would also like to thank their sponsors Martini Racing, McDonalds Australia, Tempest Air, MoComm Motorsport Communication and TFG International.