From the headlines, it might have looked like another Tremayne whitewash at New Years Thunder, but behind the scenes it was a tough night for the Queensland Pro Stock outfit.
Most attention centred on the car belonging to Aaron’s brother Tyronne. The 400 Thunder championship second place sitter was forced to the sidelines after the first round of racing due to mechanical problems in a blow that saw him fall back to third in the points.
Aaron said pre-event testing went well for the team, so the issues were unfortunate.
“After the first round of racing Tyronne’s car had an ignition failure and it hurt the engine so we could not make second round after making the fastest pass in round one,” Aaron explained. “We had a spare engine but no time to change it along with ignition.”
That meant the family pride was left to Aaron to uphold as he made the final round against Chris Soldatos. Soldatos raced against Tyronne in the final of the last championship round in Sydney, where a ‘double bulding’ moment which led to Tyronne timing out of stage left plenty of emotion on the start line.
“It was a bitter sweet moment running Chris in the final after my brother’s car not being able to run, we thought we had the cars to be racing each other in the final,” Aaron said.
“It was good to get the win against Chris, but I hope now the games can stop and we can go back to racing heads up like it should be in our class.
“My car ran fast the day before but was not running down low or to 60 feet like it should. I think our tyres were going off because 1.04 in 60 feet is not where you want to be in Pro Stock. But we had a consistent car and did not want to step to far from our window. With huge help from the crew and sponsors we were able to get the job done and look forward to round three back here at Willowbank.”
