Ashley Seward Motorsport Pro-Am in Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup, Dean Cook, has claimed his third round podium in a row while teammate Geoff Emery was the innocent victim again.
After strong runs in Darwin and Townsville, Cook entered the fifth round of the season third in points for Pro-Am and now leaves in second and within 20 points of the lead. By contrast Emery entered as the points leader, but after a DNF in race two and a penalty in race three he has slipped to third.
Cook qualified fifth and moved up to fourth in a straightforward opening race. The second race of the weekend saw rain begin to fall halfway through, with Cook electing to conserve his car and not risk a mistake as he finished in fifth. The final race was a short dash of two green flag laps amongst two Safety Car interventions, Cook navigating the drama to finish in third and claim third overall for the round.
“I am really pleased with our consistency over the last few rounds. I believe that’s our third podium in a row,” said Cook.
“We’re doing a really good job at keeping ourselves in the fight. I think we’re still lacking a tiny bit in outright speed but there’s a lot of bumping and banging in Pro-Am this year so it’s just as important to be smooth and consistent like we’re doing.
“Sandown next before a bit of a break, so if we can keep the run going there we’ll put ourselves in a great spot to end the year.”
Emery began the weekend by missing out on a second consecutive pole by just 0.08 seconds, going on to finish third in race one. In race two Emery was drilled while already off the track avoiding another incident, the resulting damage allowing Emery to go no further and leaving the ASM crew with a major turnaround before race three.
Remarkably the team got the car repaired with just minutes to spare, before Emery went out and drove from last to first in the two available green flag laps. A post-race penalty for adjudged contact however dropped Emery back to eighth.
“To get taken out in the way we did is really disappointing and effectively ruined our whole weekend,” said Emery.
“The ASM team worked incredibly hard to put it all back together in the couple of hours between races and gave me the car to go from the back to the front. The car was mega and they did an awesome job. We’ll head to Sandown and try to replicate our Townsville performance, stay up the front and run away.”
Round six of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Championship takes place at Sandown Raceway from August 19-21. The next event for Ashley Seward Motorsport is at Queensland Raceway with multiple categories from August 5-7, headlined by their TCR Australia campaign with Michael Caruso.