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Battle of the rattle guns

10 Feb 2015
TEKNO and DJR Team Penske guys training together to determine who will perform pit stops, with the teams sharing a bay this season.
3 mins by James Pavey
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Only the best will make it to the pit lane, with Team TEKNO Darrell Lea and DJR Team Penske putting their crews to the test to assess who will perform pit stops on the Holden and Ford this season.

The two one-car outfits share a pit bay in 2015, which means both teams will utilise personnel to complete pit stops, with nine positions to be filled.

The teams, based nearby in Queensland, completed various practice runs in the lead up to the sydney.com SuperTest to determine the best men for the job, and over the testing weekend, ahead of the first point-scoring event, the Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

Last year, TEKNO split personnel with Brad Jones Racing - those same TEKNO crew members are now training with DJR Team Penske, but according to team boss Jonathon Webb, they will only make the cut if they are quick enough.

"It will be the best of the bunch - a little bit of competition doesn't hurt the boys," he told v8supercars.com.au.

The teams will decide prior to the Clipsal 500 who gets the job - progress for TEKNO, who weren't able to train with Albury-based BJR until that first race meeting last year.

For DJR Team Penske, while they run the risk of having to stack behind Championship front-runner Shane van Gisbergen, the benefits of pairing up outweigh the negatives.

Traditionally the car leading on track gets priority of pit stop, to avoid double stacking, and DJR TP managing director Ryan Story sees that being no different.

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"It's a very good outcome for us," he said of the scenario.

"We've been having pit stop practices between the pair of us the last couple of weeks and it's been going very well."

The other part of the equation is BJR, also happy with the change, as they now have more control over their pit stops on Dale Wood's GB Galvanizing Commodore.

BJR's pit stop crewstrain most day at the workshop, and while the team has had to shuffle to ensure there are enough people for the three cars, team manager Chris Clark believes it will pay off.

"I've always said, it's the cheapest speed you'll ever find in motorsport," Clark said of the pit stop.

"In the early days when the crews were pretty loose, I focused pretty hard on pit stop practice.

"We've got a very good crew on #8 and #14, and there's no reason we won't end up with a very good crew on 21 this year. It's easier to monitor - we video all our stops at the shop and make sure everybody runs through so we can make sure the crews are all working together."

Wilson Security Racing GRM was another team experimenting with options to speed up pit stops over the weekend at the sydney.com SuperTest, in a sport where every second, and tenth of a second, counts.

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