Andrew Goldie has earned another hard fought podium in Pro-Am for Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge after what he labelled as one of his best performances in his racing career.
It was Matt Slavin who led the way for the ASM quartet in qualifying, on his first ever day at the Symmons Plains Circuit. The ARES Group driver put himself fourth in Pro-Am after a strong second half of the session vaulted Slavin up the order. Goldie was just one hundredth of a second behind in fifth position, with the returning Ross McGregor in eighth and Tim Wolfe in ninth in his second round in the category.
A rapid start from Goldie enabled him to leapfrog Slavin and take third place, which the Cirrus Aircrafts driver would hold the for the rest of the race. A chaotic affair also allowed the ASM drivers to climb up the outright rankings, with Goldie finishing 10th overall. Slavin brought home sixth in class ahead of Wolfe in seventh. McGregor was a DNF after being involved in an incident early on.
Race two saw the resumption of Slavin and Goldie’s on track battle with Slavin coming from behind to take fourth place in Pro-Am. Goldie crossed the line in fifth place while Wolfe brought home an eighth in class result. McGregor required a new front tub, a repair job that wasn’t possible in the turnaround between race’s one and two, so he sat the race out.
The final race of the weekend, the Jim Richards Enduro Cup race, tasked the field with a sizeable 40 lap race around the Tasmanian circuit. Goldie benefitted from a quick getaway, which vaulted him up to third in class. From there the Western Australian driver maintained a strong race pace and picked his way up the overall order to finish on the podium in Pro-Am and 14th overall. Slavin, McGregor and Wolfe all had tricky races with the longer affair creating a logjam as Pro class cars began to lap the Pro-Am’s.
Thanks to his two podiums and fifth place result across the three races, Goldie earned third overall for the round in Pro-Am.
“That was one of my best ever drives, I’m really happy with that,” said Goldie.
“It was an interesting weekend with a cold track, especially on Friday and Saturday. I was pretty happy with my performance in race one as well. It was all about just keeping out of trouble, there was a lot going on out there and we saw that just staying clean would result in a pretty handy outright position.
“The traffic in that last race was extremely tough to manage, obviously we didn’t want to hold up those Pro class guys coming through but we were careful to avoid compromising our own race. Everyone was reasonably patient, and we had a really strong podium finish in the enduro which I’m stoked with,” concluded Goldie.
Round three of Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge will take place at Sydney Motorsport Park from July 28-30 as part of the Supercars Sydney SuperNight.
