The second hour of the Dial Before You Dig Australian Six Hour was a disaster of sorts for Pollicina Motorsports.
Continuing their consistent pace of 1m48s laps, Pollicina was chugging along nicely. The team‘s main concern though was how much fuel they were chewing up. They had hoped to at least get to the 50-lap mark, but as the raced ticked over 90 minutes, the car‘s fuel tank was almost empty. So on lap 46, four laps shy of the project 50-lap stint they had hoped for, Pollicina pitted.
Initially, Anthony Loscialpo was supposed to take over the driving duties, but that was changed to Gerry Murphy. So with Murphy being strapped into the car and the car refuelled, the team got to work on changing the front tyres, which had degraded fairly rapidly during that first stanza. But as they were jacking up the car, the jack failed and the car dropped off the jack. After two quick attempts to jack the car back up, they rushed for a replacement jack and in amidst of the entire panic, one of the crew hurt himself when it landed on his foot.
Thankfully, the crewmember is ok and will continue participating in the event. Precious time was lost during the stop and all the hard work they had gained went begging. Nonetheless, Pollicina is happy with the way things have gone so far. “It was good, I felt pretty good,” he said. “I would‘ve liked to have gone another 90 minutes, but we needed to pit for fuel. Our tyres were degrading a fair bit, so I needed to pit for fuel and tyres, but the car is alright and the brakes are going good. It‘s obviously not on the pace as our main rivals, but the car is containing a consistent pace.”
Murphy will now drive his stint for approximately 90 minutes before its next scheduled pit stop.
For more information on the Dial Before You Dig Australian Six Hour, visit www.thenationals.com.au/australian6hour