Image Racing’s Jordan Boys made the most of today’s tricky race conditions at Tailem Bend and make significant gains in his final wildcard appearance of the year.
Race 22
After a dramatic start that left Heimgartner, Percat and Randle all severely damaged and out of the race, a restart was declared for Race 22 which would now also see the field racing to time-certain conditions.
Having qualified P18, Jordan took advantage of the restart and got a fantastic jump off the line that saw him up five positions to P13 by the end of the opening lap.
With the pit stops commencing on lap five, Jordan switched up his strategy from yesterday and entered pit lane midway through the race on lap 11. Stopping for fresh rear tyres, today’s stop was fast and drama free and saw him rejoin the field in P14.
With the compulsory pit stops complete Jordan was running P11 where he remained until he crossed the finish line seven positions higher than he started.
Race 23
Following a last minute dash on the grid to change from slicks to wet tyres, a combination of oil on the road and heavy rain saw Race 23 begin under Safety Car.
Starting from P19, the wet weather conditions proved tricky for Jordan who moved back to P22 by lap five having struggled with low visibility.
Though plenty of drama on lap six saw multiple cars begin to run off track, benefiting Jordan who was now up one position higher than he qualified in P18.
Unfortunately, it was short lived as Jordan was spun off into the dirt on lap seven after a lockup from Slade, losing three positions in the process.
Deciding to run the long tyre strategy, Jordan was last to enter the pits with one lap remaining and after another quick pit stop, he rejoined the field with cold rear tyres in P16 for the run to the finish.
Jordan Boys said: “Overall today was really good, it was still a little bit tough in qualifying but the race results were good and I’m definitely happy with it. The first race today was really positive, we made a few changes to the car overnight and made it a bit more predictable to drive which meant that I made less mistakes. I was definitely really happy with the result and I was really lucky to miss that crash at the start. For me it’s all about learning and it was good to have to manage my tyres so much here. Our pace was really good in the second race of the day, the weather conditions though were a little bit hard at the start. You didn’t really have much vision and I was sort of more cautious than some of the other guys who have a bit more experience, they kept going into driving blind whereas I sort of backed out of it and lost a few spots there. For me, the whole weekend definitely provided more positives than negatives. I was pretty disappointed yesterday but today has been a really good day to get the results. To move forward in both races was really encouraging and I’m just glad to be able to put to work what I learnt at Winton and show progression.”
Jordan will make his next main-game appearance at this year’s Bathurst 1000, October 6-9.