Brett Holdsworth overcame a long brake pedal in his Breeze Holiday Parks Camaro during this weekend’s AWC Race Tasmania to secure fifth in the points leaving round one of the Turtle Wax Trans Am Series.
The Ashley Seward Motorsport driver started the weekend strongly with promising race pace and front-running qualifying simulation laps during Friday’s practice sessions. Holdsworth qualified his #99 Camaro in fifth position for race 1, citing the development of a long brake pedal on his quickest lap as a limiting factor.
“I was really happy with the car and I’m actually a bit annoyed, I started to lose a bit of braking performance on my best lap. I went and had a look at the data and matched up my sectors from the previous lap, and I was going to go very close to pole,” said Holdsworth after qualifying.
In race one, a small error on the opening lap sent Holdsworth back to 11th in the running order. The experienced Trans Am racer fought back to finish seventh. Races two and three were severely affected by safety car interventions which made forward progress substantially harder. Holdsworth moved up to sixth in race two before finishing race three in the same place after dodging an early wreck.
“I actually ended up in neutral trying to miss that turn one accident, I had my hand on the shifter and I got a hit from behind which must have knocked my hand enough to put it in neutral. That cost us a couple of spots, I think I was going to fire out in third if not for that,” he said.
“It felt like Days of Thunder out there, I think it’s the nature of this place, the track is so tight and there’s so many cars. I reckon we’ll get to Phillip Island and have some cracking racing, that place is a really good fit for these cars.
“Ash and the team provided me with a car capable of running in the top three, but given some of the chaos this weekend, I’m glad to come away with some solid points and a top five championship position. If we can put together a slightly better qualifying performance next time out, it should elevate us above some of the drama and we can push towards that target of winning the championship,” Holdsworth concluded.
Brett Holdsworth will be back in action at round two of the Turtle Wax Trans Am Series at Phillip Island from March 18-20, as part of the Shannon’s Motorsport Australia Championships.
