[V8SC] Lee Holdsworth column

by Lee Holdsworth



Townsville 400

It was V8 Supercars’ first visit to the Townsville street circuit and it turned out to be, in my opinion, the biggest and best event so far on the 2009 series calendar!

As for my weekend of racing, it was an event that I will always remember for reasons both good and bad. Saturday was a day of huge highs but also extreme lows… In the Top 10 shoot-out I put together an excellent lap that claimed me my first ever V8 Supercar pole position, and at an all new venue!!

On top of it being my first pole, it was actually GRM’s first pole in over seven years! So as you can imagine this was a huge achievement for both myself and Garry Rogers Motorsport - anyone watching the telecast would have seen the emotion of the team, it was an incredible feeling.

As the race was approaching, I looked at the reading on my heart rate monitor and it was at 155bpm… And I hadn’t even started the engine yet! However, the nerves began to settle as we commenced the warm up lap.

Both Courtney and Tander got off to a good start and by turn 2 I was back to third. I had the inside line on Tander straight after and managed to fight back past him and start making ground on Courtney. After just three laps Courtney experienced engine troubles, making it an easy job to pass him. My car had brilliant speed; I was able to pull out a significant lead on the following cars before my pit stop. We decided to go for a long fuel stop on lap 20 while Whincup went for a short stop.

This got Whincup into the lead of the race but I was mowing him down fast, setting the lap record four times throughout the race. On lap 29, I had caught up onto the back of him and was challenging for the race lead when one of the most heart-breaking moments of my racing career occurred. The alarm displayed on the dash that read ‘oil pressure – 0’ and just a few corners later the engine failed. I came to a stop on the side of the track and watched the race rapidly slip out of my hands as 29 cars raced back past me.

As a result I dropped from fifth down to eventh in the championship standings.

In a situation like that what more can you do than buy yourself a beer and watch the race from the sideline, so that’s exactly what I did.

We changed engines overnight and replaced it with another that seemed far from equal power to the previous engine; as a result I qualified 12th and faced a long day for the second 200km race.

I was belted from pillar to post at the beginning of the race and dropped down to 24th position. Although the engine lacked power I was still one of the fastest drivers on the track during the race. I made my way back up to eventh by the end of the race. At one point my heart rate reached 195bpm while passing a few cars.. On reflection, it wasn’t a bad way to end a race that really wasn’t looking promising after the first couple of laps. It also moved me back up one spot in the standings.

After a tough weekend that had the potential to be an absolute cracker, I’ve come home sixth in the championship. I guess I’ll just have to make up for it at the next round at ‘home’ at Sandown in less than three weeks time to have another crack at taking victory.

See you there..!

Lee Holdsworth #33







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