AWAY from the spotlight of the main game or even the standard Super2 carnage, there was a real success story which flew under the radar at Sandown.
Aaron Cameron.
The TCR Australia and S5000 race winner finally got his shot in the Dunlop Series and did not disappoint.
In a 20-car Super2 field where every other driver had contested the opening three rounds, Cameron was straight on the pace in his debut.
The 23-year-old qualified his privately run Kelly Racing Mustang 10th for Race 1 (ninth in class) at Sandown, which he turned into sixth place at the end of 31 uninterrupted laps of green flag action.
In Race 2, he qualified 17th (16th in class) and survived mayhem to finish 10th.
“I think results-wise it was good and the speed was good considering what experience I had compared to the rest,” Cameron told V8 Sleuth.
“We were pretty happy. Especially Saturday went really nicely, we did an exceptional job in quali, and in the race having it green all the way to the end was actually good for me in my opinion.”
Cameron could only describe Race 2 on the Sunday as “pretty hectic”.
“They race extremely hard and I got to watch a lot of it,” he said.
“I went for more of the watching approach at Sandown for what was going on, not fighting anything too hard.
“Some of it was pretty stupid but then some of it was some of the hardest, best racing I’ve seen. So I look forward to getting amongst it more in the future, I guess.”
There is no official news yet on whether Cameron will return for the final two rounds of the Super2 season at Bathurst and Adelaide, although that appears to be the preference.
If he can secure more starts, there’ll be plenty of confidence for Cameron to carry in.
“It was actually pretty cool to beat some of the guys that we did,” he said, having finished outright eighth in the round points.
“We had a pretty well-prepared car but at the same time the guys in the crew that I had organised hadn’t actually worked on the car before or been in Supercars so it was all new to us.
“We knew the springs were yellow but we didn’t know what spring rate we had in the car, we didn’t know what the dampers were set to, so we were just playing with a bit of ride height and a bit of rear wing, stuff that we know what it does.”
Elsewhere, Cameron is third in the TCR title race with two rounds remaining, and holds a comfortable 84-point buffer atop the S5000 standings with only the Adelaide decider to come.
V8 Sleuth’s ongoing coverage of the Dunlop Series for Super2 and Super3 is proudly presented by Biante – Fuel your passion with winning model cars. Visit Biante here to check out their range of model cars in a range of scales from 1:64 to 1:10.
