Craig Lowndes and Bayley Hall at The Bend. Image: Supplied
The #15 Chevrolet Camaro was at the South Australian circuit ticking off Bayley Hall’s allocated test ahead of his outing in the Sprint Cup finale at Ipswich this month.
Super2 racer Hall only completed an estimated 20 uninterrupted flying laps throughout the day as the team traced an electrical issue.
Enduro Cup co-driver Craig Lowndes was on hand to complete his permitted 10 laps, but did not drive the car due to the interrupted schedule.
Team boss Adrian Burgess said the Camaro ran cleanly for the last hour of the day following the installation of a fresh wiring harness.
“It was having a full power loss, so the dash would go down and the steering wheel would lose functions, and then you’d lose power,” Burgess told Speedcafe.
“It was doing odd things. The wipers would turn on and all this sort of rubbish. You wouldn’t be able to get through a race weekend like that.
“We changed absolutely everything else and then we had to throw the ‘Hail Mary’ at it and put another chassis harness in there.”
The additional wiring harness was at the circuit with Dick Johnson Racing, which carries a spare for use by the category.
Team 18’s wildcard chassis was raced by Mark Winterbottom throughout 2023/24.
It was used for wind tunnel duties in the recent off-season and ran faultlessly during an aerodynamic evaluation at Queensland Raceway in May.
Hall heads to the garage. Image: Supplied
“The last time the car ran was at the aero test and we didn’t have a problem whatsoever with it, so it’s a bit of an unknown,” Burgess added.
“I’m sure we’ll uncover that answer when we take [the wiring harness] out of the chassis next week and inspect it.
“But at the moment, we just threw another harness over the top of the current one just to get the thing running.
“So that was a bit unfortunate, but better to have that happen here than at the next race.”
The interruptions meant the team was unable to complete any pit stop practice, while Hall missed out on a planned list of setup changes.
Burgess noted the Queensland Raceway event will allow the team to settle in before the program ramps up for the Enduro Cup.
“We probably go to QR a little bit undercooked as a group of people, and Bayley with his experience,” he said.
“But when we put a set of greens on him, he was only a tenth away from some of the more established runners.
“To be fair to him, he’s still done a very good job for us.”
Team 18 has taken over the Supercheap Auto wildcard program from Triple Eight as part of the fallout of the latter team’s switch to Ford.
The wildcard will have a second test outing as part of the full-field day at Queensland Raceway following the Ipswich Super440.