Fullwood/Fiore heroics lift BJR for second year
Bryce Fullwood/Dean Fiore lead BJR's charge for second straight year
Fullwood/Fiore P7 despite drive-through penalty
BJR's remaining three cars no better than 21st after tough day
For the second year in a row, Bryce Fullwood and Dean Fiore offered a bright spark for Brad Jones Racing at Mount Panorama on an otherwise difficult day for the team.
Fullwood and Fiore raced the #14 Middy’s Electrical Camaro from 21st to seventh in Sunday’s Repco Bathurst 1000.
The #14 led BJR’s charge for a second year running after Fullwood/Fiore raced from 24th to ninth in the 2022 Great Race.
As it was in 2022, the lead Andre Heimgartner/Dale Wood entry was rubbed out early, while the Macauley Jones/Jordan Boys and Jack Smith/Jaxon Evans cars hit trouble.
The Fullwood/Fiore result on Sunday could have been even better, given Fiore attracted a drive-through for prematurely switching off the pit lane speed limiter.
Fiore also escaped penalty over early race contact with Shell V-Power Racing Team wildcard driver Simona De Silvestro at The Chase.
"Awesome day here at Bathurst, ended up P7 which we were really really happy with,” said Fullwood, who is now 10th in the drivers’ championship standings.
"The car had awesome speed the whole way through the race. Were a little bit unlucky there to get a PLP, I think that was really, really rough. Really rough but nevertheless we came back from that.
"Massive thank you to my whole crew and really sorry to the car 8 boys, the R&J car, because those guys would have been really fast.
"They would have been right up there with me, and those guys are awesome sports and they couldn't be in the race. So they were all hands on deck helping on our side of the garage as much as they could. So a massive thank you to them.
"So awesome day here at Bathurst and hopefully next year, we can start a bit further up. Hopefully we'll be on for a trophy.”
BJR’s week got off to a great start as the team swept the final in the PIRTEK Pit Stop Challenge, with the #8/#14 crew defeating the #4/#96 crew.
It fell over later in the day, however, as Fiore crashed the #14 Camaro early in co-driver practice. Friday wasn’t much better, with all four BJR Chevrolets missing out on a Top Ten Shootout berth.
Come Sunday, and Wood was sent into the Murray’s Corner sand before suffering an engine failure, with Jones and Smith collided at The Chase.
Heimgartner/Wood recorded a DNF, with Smith/Evans 21st ahead of Jones/Boys in 22nd.
Fiore was disappointed to undo the early work with the pit speed limiter error, but praised the team for turning around and delivering a strong result for the #14 after four days of toil.
"I wasn't comfortable with the car in the first stint, but the second stint was so much better,” Fiore said.
"Felt really, really comfortable and happy with the speed. And then we got a pit lane penalty for popping the pit speed limit button, like a second too early on pit exit, which I didn't even know was a thing.
"So I'm so upset with that because the penalty just does not fit the crime in any way, shape or form. So that's put a bit of a dampener on it for me.
“But Bryce did a fantastic job and so to Phil [Keed, race engineer] and Jason [Bonney, date engineer] and all the boys and girls in the team, they should be very proud of that because we had a tough four days.
"And Bryce drove the wheels off in those last two stints to bring us home a decent result.”
