Scott MacLean has completed a marathon week of testing ahead of the East Coast Thunder event today at Sydney Dragway.
With tuning genius Darren Mayer of DMPE in attendance to supervise the debut of the new combinations, MacLean was able to get both himself and his pristine blue rides on point before qualifying begins later today.
The highlight of the week was a personal best 5.49 second run in the MacLean Motorsport Pro Alcohol Funny Car. MacLean explained that it was a matter of building up to a full pass in stages.
“The 5.49 was actually a fairly cautious run, we worked it up in stages, starting with getting to the top of first gear, then the top of second gear and making sure we weren’t hurting anything along the way,” he said.
“Darren was pretty happy with the progress we made there so on the weekend we will be looking for consistency. We had a few teething problems but they were nothing too serious.”
The Holden Monaro Pro Slammer proved a little more temperamental, as the team worked to get the suspension set up correct, and an attempt at a full pass was derailed by a broken blower belt. The last time MacLean drove the car was on the other side of the world in Florida, shortly after it was first completed.
“We have to do some fine tuning on the suspension side of things, it is launching straight and hard but it is still squirrelly in the burnout.
“We will go into qualifying feeling a little bit better than average on where we are at but we are probably a day short on getting the Monaro into the zone.”
After 12 months out of the seat, MacLean felt a little nervous when he first climbed back into his familiar Funny Car, but the amount of runs this week has served to boost his confidence at the wheel before qualifying.
“I was very nervous at the first hit which is why I went for the Funny Car first. Normally I jump in very confident but i was more cautious. It was good to get the first one out of the way. I am looking forward to it, al the crew are getting on well and having a good time and the weather is looking great here for the weekend.”
While he wouldn’t mind going a few rounds in competition, Maclean is treating East Coast Thunder as a fun end to the testing week.
“My personal goals would be to have two consistent cars and to walk out of here with some solid baselines for each car. Like anything we would love to win, but it is basically rounding out the testing into a race meet.
“I’d like to give a special thanks to Darren Mayer and Chris Russo for giving up their time to come out and be a part of this and thanks to my wife and family and all the crew. Apart from the personal friendship we have with Darren, we are also grateful for the sponsorship extended from DMPE and thanks to those guys for coming from the USA.”