Roar Of The V8s

The track had completely dried overnight, even if it hadn’t several feeder series such as the Toyota 86’s and Touring Car Masters would have rubbered in the track regardless. The first qualifying session of the year was fast approaching, and all of AKV Motorsports were hard at work preparing the cars. Yesterday’s practice was good on paper, but the track was damp from rain and humidity at the time. Now, with the surface dried and previous series rubbering in the surface, it was going to be much faster.

They would need to adjust quickly to stay as competitive as they were the prior day, but both Viral and Akula were happy with where their respective cars were. The #98 and #24 Commodores were rolled out onto pit lane to await the start of the session. This was where there months of building, testing, hunting for sponsorships, all of it would need to come together.

They wasted little time when pit exit opened, coming out onto track one behind the other. Near the tail end of the queue as the last two car team in the lane. Viral backed off a little to warm up her tires and give herself some clean air to work with. As a train, the cars started their laps.

With how much drier the track was, Akula was much more confident with his car. He starting attacking immediately, but with the track surface changing overnight he anticipated having to brake earlier than usual. Viral did so as well, but ahead of them Anton De Pasquale, who had previously beached his car in Practice 2, went below the 1:30 mark. The cars hadn’t even gone below 1:34 the previous night.

When Akula and Viral crossed the line for their banker laps, they were 13th and 16th respectively. There was much time for both of them to find, now that they knew just how much harder they could push the limit of grip.

They did their cooldown lap and prepared for the second run, with most of the fuel burned off, the tires warmed up, and still full of grip it was time for the real push. Akula took turn one hard and fast, and hit the braking point pin perfect for turn two. He managed to find a good rhythm through turns three through seven, got onto the power very smoothly out of eight, putting up a new fastest second sector, and just about aced turn eleven, not quite getting to the curb on the exit. Crossing the line, he slotted up right behind De Pasquale in 2nd place.

As for Viral, she went into turn one just as hard and fast, but was half a line too wide. Just like in practice, she dipped a front wheel into the grass and needed to back out. She was heated in the cockpit, having ruined her push lap before it really even began. She dived into the pits at the conclusion of the lap and dropped her head into her steering wheel the moment she got parked up in her spot. The team brought her up on the jack, and started to change the tires, refuel the car, and clean the splitter for one last run.

Akula was in not long after, quite confident his lap would stick to get him in the shootout, he jumped out of his car to go help Viral collect herself.

‘It was a dumb mistake.”

“Hey, stop hitting yourself over the head over one error. Look, you still have time, the car isn’t damaged, don’t worry about the time. Just go out there and do your best, you don’t have to be the best. It’s your first race. You said it yourself when we were testing, you’ll adjust in time.” Akula gave Viral a soft touch on her right shoulder. “You can do this, it doesn’t matter where you end up, just give it an honest effort.”

Viral was back out on track, coming out with about three minutes to go in the session. She made way for the two Will’s Brown and Davison between turns four and five as she was warming up. She started her lap with about a minute thirty, so clean or not this was her last chance. She hit the apex of turn one properly and parked it up nicely in turn two, was smooth on the power through turns three, four, five, six, and seven. Got it stopped nicely on the curb in turn eight, then breezed easily through turns nine and ten, hugging the inside for turn eleven. When she crossed the line, she jumped up into 13th place. A late lap from Bryce Fullwood slotted her down into 14th.

It wasn’t a dream qualifying, but it put her in a spot that she could compete from. Akula meanwhile had lost spots to Davison, Van Gisburgen, Heimgartner, and Brown, but still found his way into the top ten shootout. It was a great start for him, being up there with the fastest teams and drivers in the series.

Akula watched from inside his Holden as Chaz Mostert left pit lane to begin his shootout lap. He would be going out next, all eyes on him for one lap to try and wrestle pole away. There were fast cars coming on after him, but he paid them no mind, he just waited his turn to get on with his lap. Once he was given the all clear, he went out. As he was doing his outlap, Chaz finished his lap to go P3. The current pole sitter was Tim Slade, the team right next door to AKV Motorsports.

It was full concentration and the team gave him full silence to work his magic, throwing the car through turn 1 just about as far as one would dare to but stopping nicely for turn two. His first sector was the fastest of the shootout at that point, first to break the 26 second mark. From that point on it was all about flow. His line through turn eight was tucked up to the inside curb, and he did the fastest 2nd sector of the shootout. Now it was all about stopping for nine, ten, and eleven, but as he got under the brakes for ten the car bobbled slightly as the rears locked and he had to lift out to get it stopped for eleven.

Coming to the line with the fastest first two sectors of the shootout, he missed out on Slade’s time by an annoying three-hundredths of a second, but it was still P2 after half of the runs had already been completed. The team as a whole got together to watch the rest of the runs. Will Brown slotted in behind Akula, then Andre Heimgartner squeezed his way in between him and Slade.

Up next was Shane, who surprised no one by being the man to take Slade off his throne, followed by Will Davison who looked strong until he locked his rear brakes at turn 8 and skidded wide. His lap was only good enough to split the Erebus teammates. Finally, Anton De Pasquale put together a flawless lap to snatch pole position. In the end, Akula found himself lining up on the third row in 5th. For the first shootout of the season, a great performance.