Bathurst 12 Hour 2010

TMR Australia has been cruelly robbed of a potential three-peat victory at the Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour. Winning the past two events, TMR Australia went into this year’s event with two cars: the two-time winning Pedigree Evo X RS of Rod Salmon/Damian White/Ian Tulloch, and the 2009 runner-up Evo X RS of West Surfing Products car of Glyn Crimp/Stuart Costera and V8 Supercar driver Warren Luff.
Qualifying a solid fourth, under sodden conditions, White moved the #1 car into the lead within the first hour, pushing out a gap of 12 seconds, and throughout the next eight hours, never dropped out of contention, consistently lapping with the kind of pace and consistency that has seen them victorious in the past.

With White struck down with sickness and at times on a saline drip, Salmon and Tulloch did much of the day’s stints while White rested and readied for the final double-stint.
But with a little over three hours remaining, Salmon felt the footwell get extremely hot: the defending champs’ car was struck with track debris cracking the exhaust and blowing super-heated air onto the wiring, effecting the gearshift and with potential brake problems risking safety, team principal Alan Heaphy had no choice but to retire the Pedigree car.
“We were better placed than when we have won the event before, with only three cars on the lead lap and only three hours to go,” sighed Salmon.
The West Evo X had a more tumultuous race: Kosteras made light contact with another competitor exiting the Chase, and was given a drive-through penalty, then shortly after ran wide coming into Forest’s Elbow while overtaking a slower car and made heavy contact with the wall.
The TMR service crew was brought into action and replaced an entire front-left corner on the West car, getting the Evo X back into the race within half an hour and losing just 10 laps, an incredible effort given the extent of damage.
Despite inspired driving by Luff being the fastest car on the track and consistently unlapping themselves, the earlier contact with the concrete had also broken the back of the turbo which developed into a race-ending problem and the car was withdrawn.
TMR Australia will return to Melbourne in readiness for its move into new larger premises, and prepare for its next event, the Lake Mountain Sprint tarmac rally on March 20-21.