SUPERCARS teams are keeping their heads down amid growing concerns about the race against the clock to make the designated Gen3 shakedowns.
The first chance for teams to run their new cars is due to take place at Queensland Raceway on January 30 for the four northern outfits, before the remainder are scheduled to run at Winton on February 1.
Murmurs are gathering momentum that those dates will be, at best, a very tight deadline.
At worst, even the second round of testing (February 7 at Winton, February 9 at QR) might be unachievable.
When approached by V8 Sleuth, Tickford Racing CEO Tim Edwards and PremiAir Racing team principal Matt Cook were circumspect about their chances.
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“We’re sweating,” Edwards conceded.
“We’re just working as hard as we can with the parts that we’ve got.
“We’re reliant on a lot of external suppliers for parts and so it’s largely out of our hands because as quick as parts come through our doors they get bolted onto the cars.
“In some instances, we’ve got one of a part and it might be a temporary part that we have got just for mock-up purposes.
“We’ll get our first proper engine, I think they’ll leave Queensland tomorrow, so hopefully by the end of the week we’ll have our first engine which will be good.
“With a good tailwind, we may be able to get a car out on the first of February but we’re two weeks away now and probably are getting a little bit nervous waiting on parts.
“We’re just going to keep pushing as hard as we can, that’s all we can do.”
PremiAir are in a unique position given they’ll receive turnkey Camaros from supplier Triple Eight Race Engineering.
“All my mechanics are there now (at Triple Eight’s workshop) so I have got five guys there that are helping put them together, so all of the cars are just in a massive big production line at the moment,” said Cook.
“To be perfectly honest, I can’t answer that question (as to whether they’ll make the January 30 shakedown) but what I can say is if Triple Eight are there, we’ll be there.
“If Triple Eight aren’t there, then obviously we won’t be there because they know exactly where they’re at, waiting on stuff to be manufactured.
“I still think there’s a couple of things this week that are still yet to be signed off from a design standpoint so again if they’re there on the 30th, we’ll be there, if they’re not obviously we won’t.
“If we don’t make the 30th, the next one is the ninth (of February) and we’ll have to be at that.”
An all-in test at Sydney Motorsport Park on February 22 is earmarked as the final preparations ahead of the season-opening Newcastle 500 in March.
Additional Gen3 homologation testing is due to commence tomorrow at QR.
