Weel up the Creek without a pedal.
A difficult weekend ended in disappointment for Paul Weel Racing after yet another deluge struck Eastern Creek during yesterday's 300km race, Round 2 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.
On a day eerily reminiscent of last year's Round 13 race when vicious storms turned the track into a fast-flowing river, showers alternated with heavy rain in a race which began with a rolling start behind the safety car, and ended prematurely as a torrential downpour again rendered the conditions too unsafe to continue racing.
A difficult weekend ended in disappointment for Paul Weel Racing after yet another deluge struck Eastern Creek during yesterday's 300km race, Round 2 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.
On a day eerily reminiscent of last year's Round 13 race when vicious storms turned the track into a fast-flowing river, showers alternated with heavy rain in a race which began with a rolling start behind the safety car, and ended prematurely as a torrential downpour again rendered the conditions too unsafe to continue racing.
The miserable conditions capped a cruel day for Paul Weel, who had been racing strongly when brake failure struck, resulting in multiple visits to the garage for repair work. By doing so he completed the required 75 per cent race distance and greeted the chequered flag to be classified 29th and pick up a handful of valuable points to leave him in 14th place in the championship standings.
"The pedal just went to the floor, there was no pressure in the front brakes," Weel explained. "From that point on we just had to do what we could to finish the race. We'd fix it and five laps or so later it would happen again.
"It's disappointing because the car was working really well - I passed Craig Lowndes and he finished second, so that gives you an idea of how well we were going."
Teammate Jason Bright fared little better as a gamble on the rain clearing backfired. Starting with a predominantly dry-weather set-up, he slipped from his fourth-place start to eventually finish 13th.
"The car wasn't suited to the heavy wet, but the first set of tyres was reasonable - we were only losing two-tenths (of a second per lap) to the guys in front of us," he said.
"But the second set just didn't work with the car - they were a bit older and didn't come up to temperature, I couldn't get the power down and kept locking brakes, so we had to just try to finish."
Bright picked up 120 points to drop only one position in the championship standings, to sixth on 267 points behind new championship leader Steve Richards on 360 points.
