CAMS Offices (Sports House) Cnr. Caxton & Castlemaine Streets, Milton Q 4064. Meeting Start - 7.45pm approx. Pre Meeting Drinkies and Feed up at the Paddo Tavern as usual.
JAKE CAMILLERI and the Grand Prix Mazda team are looking for a repeat of their outright victory at Oran Park Raceway from last season, as the Australian Manufacturers Championship heads to the Western Sydney circuit this weekend for the penultimate round of the series.
Camilleri, behind the wheel of the team's Mazda 3 MPS, shook the establishment at Oran Park last year, when in changeable wet and dry conditions the two-wheel drive machine blitzed the four-wheel drive opposition to take the overall round victory.
With over 12 months of development undertaken on the car, the Grand Prix Mazda squad are looking to improve on the second outright they scored at the most recent championship round held at Morgan Park Raceway.
"We're pumped up, we can't wait to go racing, Oran Park was very good for us last year," said Camilleri.
"This is the first track that we have run at twice, so we have plenty of data to go off from last year; it will be very interesting to see how far the car has really come since then.
"Obviously the weather down at Sydney at this time of year can be fairly average, but we aren't worried about a bit of rain as we showed last year it can really work to our advantage."
The Shannons Nationals round this weekend will be the last time that a national level meeting will be held at Oran Park, a circuit that Camilleri has campaigned at several times over the years.
"It's very sad. It's a shame that as the population grows outwards we lose such fantastic race tracks, so I hope we get a big crowd out there to see it off."
Team manager Joseph Camilleri says the team has been hard at work preparing the car in the short turnaround between events.
"We are really looking for another strong outright result this weekend, the team has made a massive number of changes in developing the car since Oran Park last year, so it will be very interesting to see how it goes," said Joseph.
"We are looking to continue on the momentum we started with a great result at Morgan Park, and the strong field at Oran Park will mean that Jake will have to work hard for the win.
"Oran Park is a lot more flowing than Morgan Park, which is very stop-start, meaning the Mazda 3 MPS struggled with excess wheel spin, so the circuit layout characteristics will be working in our favour."
The weekend of racing features three heats, with the final event being a reverse-grid handicap race, seeing the smaller capacity cars starting from the front of the field.
Grand Prix Mazda Racing would like to thank Castrol, Esanda, Allianz and All Star Tuning Systems for their continued support.
Shannons Nationals- Australian Manufacturers Championship Timetable
Friday 28 August 9:00am Practice 20 minutes 11:40am Practice 20 minutes 1:45pm Practice 20 minutes
Saturday 29 August 9:30am Practice 15 minutes 12:55pm Qualifying 20 minutes 4:40pm Race 1- 8 laps
Sunday 30 August 8:50am Race 2- 12 laps 12:25pm Race 3- 10 laps
Australian Manufacturers Championship Outright Pointscore (after 3 of 5 rounds)
1. Garry Holt- BMW 2. Lee Castle- Subaru 3. Rod Salmon- Mitsubishi 4. Jake Camilleri- Mazda 3 MPS 5. Stuart Jones- Toyota
Class B Championship (after 3 of 5 rounds)
1. Jake Camilleri- Mazda 3 MPS 2. Peter O'Donnell- BMW 3. Jeremy Gray- Ford 4. Matt Brady- Ford 5. David Ryan- Ford
