Golding delivering on Xiberras' plan

James Golding has moved quickly to deliver on Peter Xiberras’ plan to score top 10s by year’s end.

Golding finished 10th in the first Sunday race at last weekend’s ITM Auckland SuperSprint.

The PremiAir Racing recruit backed it up with 11th in the finale.

Golding was running in the top 10 in Saturday’s race before his skirmish with Macauley Jones.

Hometown hero Chris Pither backed up Golding’s results with 19th and 16th on Sunday.

Golding and Pither moved forward in Sunday’s races; Golding started 12th and 18th, with Pither 25th and 22nd.

Pither wildly impressed in Saturday’s race as he vaulted a dozen spots.

Xiberras’ first season as a team owner has had its ups and downs, but the acquisition of Golding has helped the squad turn a corner.

Speaking on Supercars’ Cool Down Lap podcast, Xiberras was clear in the team’s goal: "The plan was always to get to the top 10 by the end of the year.”

Golding has so far delivered despite being parachuted into the team midway through the season.

The former Garry Rogers Motorsport driver replaced Garry Jacobson, who departed after Darwin.

Given his form, Golding is making a serious case to be retained by the team for 2023.

In 11 starts, Golding has finished 14th or better five times, highlighted by a ninth at Sandown.

'Finishing P10 in the first race was awesome'

The next step is Bathurst, which will be Xiberras’ first Great Race as a team owner.

"Finishing P10 in the first race was awesome for the team,” Golding said.

“In race two to come all the way from 18th to 11th was really cool.

"I am starting to feel more and more confidence in the car.

“As I am feeling more comfortable and we are working really well together, I think it is certainly showing.

"Now we are onto the big one, the Great Race, and I can’t wait to get there.”

Pither, who made just his second round start at Pukekohe, was pleased to gain spots in each race.

Local boy Pither was popular at Pukekohe

“We moved forward in all of our races which is a real good thing,” he said.

“Even if we had a couple of challenging qualifying sessions trying to unlock the new tyre speed to get a lap time.

“The first race today was a bit tough as there was contact on the first lap which squashed the exhaust quite badly and left me with pretty poor straight-line speed.

“[It made] the rest of the race a little more difficult, but we still moved from P25 to P19.

“We then had a relatively clean race in the final race, moving up quite a few spots to finish P16 from P22.

“We moved forward in all of the races, made a couple of passes, and it highlights that our race pace is good."

Tickets for the Repco Bathurst 1000 are available on Supercars.com and Ticketek.