MCNALLY PUMPS UP THE PACE ON WAY TO 6TH ON THE GRID AT WAKEFIELD
5 April 2008

West Coast Racing’s Mark McNally has started Round 2 of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series in fine form by qualifying sixth for tomorrow’s opening race.

Following on from one of his best test days to date at Winton Raceway last week Mark hit the ground running when he was fifth fastest in the first practice session followed by tenth fastest in the second.

“It is always hard to gauge exactly where you are at in practice because you don’t know how good the tyres of your competitors are,” Mark said.

For the large part of the opening practice Mark was second fastest in one of his best performances to date, and with that in mind Mark and his engineers kept working on making his car better.

Once qualifying began, where everyone has new tyres, it became clear that Mark had a fast car as soon as he hit the track.

“I put down a mid 59 second lap straight away and the car wasn’t exactly how I would have liked it.”

After pitting for his second set of new tyres, and making a few changes to the set-up, Mark went on to set his fastest lap of the day, a 59.18, which put him sixth fastest.

“Sixth is a really good result for me at the moment,” he said.

“The lap before it was strong and when I came across the start line again I hit the rev limiter earlier than before (meaning the car was travelling at a higher speed) so I knew I was lined up for a good lap.

“I got held up late in the lap but it was still my fastest one.”

Starting from the third row puts Mark right in the thick of the action for the first race.

“I am just going to give it my best shot and see how it turns out,” Mark said.

“It will be a tight race tomorrow but I am sure we have a fast car so I have as good a chance as anyone else out there.”

Mark has three races tomorrow, two of 17 laps and a third of 30 laps.

Mark McNally and West Coast Racing are supported by the following companies: NRW Holdings, South Coast Excavations, OzTrac, Action Mining Services, Brandrill, Heliwest, Hammond Electrical, EIW, Barbagallo, Statewide Oils / Roto Oil, Titan Plant Hire, Sunrunner Sports Cruiser, Promac, Mt Magnet Drilling, Energy Enterprises.