Brown crashes, Waters 21st as Wood sets Townsville pace
Will Brown crashes, Cam Waters 21st as Ryan Wood sets pace
WAU driver Wood fastest in Practice 1 at Reid Park on Friday morning
Waters down the order, Brown crashes after chequered flag
Ryan Wood has kicked off Friday race day at the NTI Townsville 500 with the fastest time in Practice 1, with contenders Will Brown crashing and Cam Waters mired down in 21st.
The Walkinshaw Andretti United driver, who sits 11th in the championship, clocked a 1:13.6345s midway through the 30-minute session at Reid Park Street Circuit.
Wood edged championship leader Broc Feeney by just 0.078s, with Team 18's Anton De Pasquale, Chaz Mostert and Penrite Racing's Kai Allen rounding out the top five.
The big story of the session seemed to be the performance, or lack thereof, of Tickford Racing star Waters. The Ford star, who is a three-time winner in Townsville, was only 21st, and logged the fewest laps of any driver.
However, as the chequered flag flew, Brown crawled back to pit lane with damage to his #1 Red Bull Ampol Chevrolet, having clipped the concrete wall exiting Turn 2.
Feeney opened the batting with a 1:14.8221s, and came back around to lower the number to a 1:14.1916s. Wood began to show genuine leading pace, first jumping ahead with a 1:14.0008s before reeling off consecutive 1:13s laps.
Erebus Motorsport veteran Jack Le Brocq was first into the 1:13s with a 1:13.9657s, before Feeney returned to the top with a 1:13.7128s, ahead of Allen's 1:13.9463s.
As the first runs wound down, Wood jumped back to the top with a 1:13.6654s, and lowered his own benchmark to a 1:13.6345s.
Through the first runs, Wood led Feeney, Allen, Le Brocq, Brodie Kostecki, Thomas Randle, De Pasquale, Matt Payne, Will Davison and James Courtney, with Will Brown 13th, Waters 20th and Mostert 25th.
Walkinshaw Andretti United kept Mostert in the garage as the team bled the brakes on the #25 Mobil 1 Optus Ford. WAU opted to put Mostert back into an older chassis in Townsville, with an eye on reverting the previous chassis to a spare ahead of the team's move to Toyota.
WAU sent Mostert out, and the two-time Bathurst winner immediately jumped to sixth. Brown then vaulted to fourth, which became sixth as De Pasquale and Mostert improved.
The first mistake was made by Heimgartner, who ran long into the run-off at Turn 11. At the time, with 12 minutes remaining, Heimgartner was 10th.
After a long period in the garage, Waters returned to the track with 11 minutes to go. Sitting 21st with just four laps to his name, Waters remained 21st after his first flying lap, and returned to the garage.
Waters filtered back out in the closing minutes, but remained 21st with nine laps to his name. However, attention quickly turned to Brown, who crawled back to pit lane without his rear wing.
The field returns for Practice 2 at 11:10am AEST, ahead of Boost Mobile Qualifying at 1:20am.
The 35-lap Race 20 will commence at 3:40pm.
