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Driver Feature: Craig Baird - Make mine a Porsche!
by Stefan Bartholomaeus
July 2008
Season 2008 appears to be going to plan for 38 year old Kiwi Craig Baird. With three rounds still remaining, the Fitzgerald Racing driver is well on the way to a second Australian Carrera Cup crown. Having seen off early season challenges from young guns Dean Fiore and Aaron Carratti, Baird’s consistency (coupled with the fact that he’s won eight out of the first 16 races...) has seen him establish a handy lead in the points chase.
With former team owner Tony Quinn quitting the all Porsche category at the end of 2007, Baird was in for a busy off season. In between winning rounds of the New Zealand Carrera Cup, Baird was back in Australia, sorting out his 2008 program.
Whilst Quinn may no longer be a driver or team owner in the class, preferring instead to concentrate on his ever expanding pet food business, he made sure that Baird wouldn’t be negatively affected by the change.
“He [Quinn] is still very supportive of me, and he is car owner, so he helps me run it,” says Baird.
“Fitzy [Peter Fitzgerald] and Quinny had a relationship for a long time, through different things, so I was really happy to do a deal with Peter Fitzgerald. I think as far as Porsche preparation goes, he is as good as anyone in the country, and he gave me an opportunity to be able to rebuild the car. I’d run it for two years without doing anything, so the thing was a little bit tired. I needed to go to somewhere that they could sort of reward me with rebuilding the car, and they’ve done a great job.”
Working with two young team mates, Barton Mawer and Andrew Moffat, is also a task that Baird is relishing.
“We are a three car team, open book, which is good for the young guys. Barton [Mawer] is obviously doing a good job, he has been quicker than probably I first expected him to be, straight up. It helps, you know, [a] three car team’s easy, because if you are having a bad day, you go and copy what someone else is doing, and it makes you feel better.”
With his Carrera Cup racing ticking along as planned, the conversation quickly turns to Bathurst. Having been famously disqualified from a first placed finish in the 1997 Super Touring Bathurst 1000, the Kiwi remains without a win on the hallowed mountain.
This year sees Baird make his debut for the Holden Racing Team, having followed Garth Tander, and others, across from the HSVDT.
As Baird explains, the move to HRT was about more than just getting to wear ‘those red pants’...
“I enjoyed driving with Tander last year at Sandown,” he recalls, “we got on really well. I really respect the way he operates and, probably even more so, Robby Crawford, as a team manager. Just the way he handles people. It doesn’t matter whether you’re sweeping the floor or driving the car or wearing a tie, everyone gets treated with respect, and he’s just got this way about him. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for him, and we’ve been mates for a long time.
“I just think that, when he sort of moved, he said they [HRT] wanted to sign us up after Bathurst, and it was just an opportunity that I was happy to have. I know I can jump in Garth’s seat, which is another thing for him, so if he does have to be split, I can jump in his car at any time. I don’t have to adjust a seat belt, nothing, just bang, straight in. So that’s another thing for Garth that, he knows generally that I can return the car still in a good condition, and he doesn’t have to go and drive the thing like a half shut pocket knife.
“If he drives with a little fella, it’s a compromise. He doesn’t want to be compromised; he’s there to win a championship. The only thing you’ve got to do at Bathurst as a co-driver, if you’ve got a drive in a lead car, is you’ve got to return it back to them on the lead lap, with a chance for them to race for the overall deal. Like Sandown, I made an absolute cock-up of the start and little bits and pieces, but I still returned the car in eighth position, and I was really, really rusty. I just didn’t do enough miles during the year in the V8, whereas this year, I get a lot more miles in it, and I know I can keep those race miles up in it. Anyway, we gave it back to him, and we were still in a position to win the race in the end, apart from another drive through.”
But whilst the Kiwi may be looking forward to his best shot yet at winning the 1000, his desire to return to the V8Supercar series full time isn’t high. Having felt the pain of driving largely uncompetitive cars in his six full seasons of V8Supercar racing, Baird much prefers the equality of Carrera Cup.
“I’d rather do two races a year with HRT and drive the best car, than do fourteen races in a shitbox,” he says categorically. “You’ve only got to look at the guys, like [Cameron] McConville, come from cars that haven’t quite been right - boom - hops in a good car, going good. [Paul] Dumbrell, same thing – boom - all of a sudden, going good. Then you get guys like Todd Kelly that are coming from HRT to a car that is probably struggling a little bit, [and he’s] out the back door.
“You are only as good as the car you drive, and if I can take anyone really in the V8 field and put them in a good car, they’re going to run in the top half dozen. Take Craig Lowndes. When he ran the green eyed monster or whatever they called it, it was nowhere, and he was nowhere. He can’t just carry the thing to the front.
“Whereas this thing here [the Porsche], I can jump in that car tomorrow [his], or Twiggie’s [Max Twigg’s] or that one [points to Barton Mawer’s]; they’re all the same, there is nothing I can do to make it better or worse. There is a little bit of fine tuning here and there, and the driving style, but they’re all much for muchness.”
So whilst Jim Richards may have retired, it seems that the Carrera Cup ‘young guns’ will still have a New Zealand born Porsche ‘master’ to chase for some time to come.
Part #2: Round the clock motor racing....
Having won the Dubai 24hr in early March, Baird endured at tough run in this year’s running of the Nürburgring 24hr. The GT3 RSR that Baird was sharing with Tony and Klark Quinn and Jonathon Webb suffered terminal mechanical dramas after just 49 laps.
However, win, lose, or draw, 24hr racing is a facet of the sport that, at the moment, Baird can’t get enough of.
“24hr racing’s good, because it’s a real good team sport,” he replies enthusiastically.
“You’ve got to get together with a group of guys, and the mechanics have to do their bit. Everyone’s tired and everyone’s grumpy and you’ve got to dig deep and say ‘hey, I can’t have a sleep, I’m going to get back in the car’. You’ve got to really fight for a result.
“At the moment, the enduros is something I really like.... especially driving the RSRs. They are a lot quicker than these [the Cup Car]. They are the best sort of sports car you can buy from Porsche, so they’re a very rewarding car. They’re fast, [and have] a lot of aero on them.”
As far as the Nürburgring itself goes, Baird sums it up in just two words; “pretty wild”.
“[When] I first got there, to be honest, I wanted to hop on a plane and go back home. It was kind of daunting even just driving around it in a rental car. Putting it into perspective, you’ve got Bathurst, that’s, in my eyes, a fantastic circuit, but its six kays, that’s [the Nürburgring] 27 kays. They start 270 cars, they start 32 at Bathurst. It’s a 6 hour race at Bathurst, it’s 24 hours on the Nordschliefe. So, it’s just massive.
“There’s 300,000 spectators, they’re all drinking German beer and lighting fireworks, to the extent that, in the middle of the night, [with] all the fireworks and campfires in there, you can’t even see where you are going sometimes. You’ve got to slow down to like 80 kays and drive through the valleys where the smoke’s come across, it’s just a complete ‘white-out’. We think the race fans up the top of the mountain are pretty wild..... mate, they’re still in training.”
- Stefan Bartholomaeus
© 321 IGNITION Pty Ltd 2008
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