If circumstances had worked out differently, maybe I would have been at Sebring on March 18, instead I am flying out to Australia on that day. The bio-diesel Lola project has been delayed and couldn’t have been readied in time to fly it out to Florida for the 12 Hours, so my first race of the year will be the first round of the Fujitsu Series, on the Adelaide street circuit, on the weekend of March 23 – 26. For most of the year, we’ll be supporting the ‘big boys’ of the V8 Supercars, but in truth there’s not much difference between their cars and ours: ours are just a little older, that’s all. My objective is to use this as a learning year, with the intention of progressing into the main series in the future. Typically the Fujitsu cars are two years or so older than the cars that run in the V8 Supercars. My intended car for this year is a Ford Falcon AU – but some of my rivals will be running the newer Falcon BA or Commodore VY, so they’ll have a slight equipment advantage. The main V8 Supercar Series run the newest cars for one or possibly two seasons, then upgrade and pass on the older chassis to the Fujitsu feeder series. Mark Howard Racing ran this car in 2004 and 2005, with Mark himself driving at some meetings.
We were discussing the idea of me racing in Australia in 2005, but my University studies and other racing commitments got in the way 12 months ago. However, since then we’ve brought two Falcons to the UK and Mark’s #37 is the sister car to the latest one we’ve brought over. We knew it was a well maintained car and we’ve got a great team looking after it. Darrell Dixon will be running the team’s logistics alongside Alan Stoodley, ex member of Mark Howard’s Racing Team, who will run Race Engineering. They will be ably assisted by two full-time V8-experienced race mechanics. The car is based at ASM’s workshop in Richmond, just outside Sydney. All the Fujitsu meetings are two-race events and this is my programme down under for this year. March
23 - 26 Clipsal 500 - Adelaide Australian Fujitsu V8 Supercar
SeriesV8 Ford Falcon Supercar I gained some good Falcon experience in a number of Britcar races last year, where we showed how quick these big V8s are. Unfortunately, by racing in Adelaide, I’ll miss the first event of the Britcar season, at Silverstone – but I’ll be back in the UK on April 3, in time for the next one on the April 7/8 weekend, at Oulton Park. I’ll have
a lot of travelling to do – but I’ll be getting in a
lot of racing miles too. I look forward to keeping you all informed
of my exploits on the other side of the world, and I hope I can
bring you an interesting perspective on the V8 Supercars: we’re
not always racing with them, but we’re the main support series
for most of the Australian season.
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We
reported recently that Adam Sharpe would be racing in the Fujitsu
Series in Australia throughout 2006. We can now add that while he’s
there, he’ll be forwarding details of his own exploits in
the Adam Sharpe Motorsport Ford Falcon
and providing some fascinating behind the scenes observations from
the V8 Supercars – exclusively for dailysportscar
readers. Here, Adam introduces his season down under.
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