PWR Racing chose to focus on the positives after its cars finished 10th and 11th respectively in the Sandown 500 on a day when every car in the field had dramas of some description.
The PWR Holden Commodores of Jason Bright/Paul Weel and Matthew White/Marcus Marshall were not immune, with a number of dramas and minor errors combining to rob the team of a potential race victory.
But it was the speed and reliability of the two cars, as well as steady, mature driving from team newcomers White and Marshall, which spelled out the team's potential for the all-important Bathurst 1000 in four weeks.
“We'll go back to the workshop and figure out what happened with a few of the incidents today, and try to make sure they don't happen again,” team general manager John Panozzo said afterwards. “We had a big chance today and events conspired to take that away from us – some were our fault, others weren't, but we'll look at everything and try not to put ourselves in that position again.”
Weel started the race from seventh position and drove an strong first stint to hand over to Bright in third place. He dropped to fifth in an incident with Glenn Seton but soon battled back and was handily placed when race leader Greg Ritter – co-driving with Bright's main championship rival Marcos Ambrose – spun and lost almost a full lap.
With only Greg Murphy in front of him, the #50 car was briefly in the box seat.
But it all went awry only a few laps later when Bright locked a wheel on some mud which another car had tracked across the racing line. He speared off and then across the track, miraculously threading between fellow Holden drivers Murphy and Mark Skaife, before rejoining the race in seventh.
Worse was to come as a jammed wheel nut cost valuable seconds on the next pitstop, then a few laps later Bright was sent into a high-speed spin after contact on track that caused a rear tyre blowout.
