By Daniel Powell
Team Fox Racing (TFR) made a return to the winner’s circle on Saturday night at Horsham’s Blue Ribbon Raceway in Victoria during the final round of Southern Speedcar Tour Series and team driver, Mark Brown, described it as one of his toughest wins.
Brown, a former Victorian resident, had never set eyes on the Blue Ribbon Raceway track and admitted that the team ‘struggled’ early on in the night with finding a good setup for the NSW # 11 Showpiece Signs & Designs supported Esslinger powered Spike, but they managed to come good when it mattered most, the feature race. After a tough battle early on, Brown worked his way to the front and in the end he defeated South Australian and pacesetter Ben Dillon and local Travis Mills.
“We did ok in our heat races with a first and a second, but in the dash and early on in the feature race we were struggling quite a bit,” explained Brown, who had made a late decision with the team to make the trek down to Blue Ribbon Raceway. “A number of the Victorians and visiting South Australian drivers proved really strong all night and the team and I really had to work our butts off to get the setup right for the feature race and we were very pleased in the end to come away with the win. I honestly hadn’t seen my team have such big smiles on their faces after our win and that’s certainly a positive thing.”
Although a low-key victory, TFR and Brown were able to take a lot away from their success and it’s certainly going to hold them in good stead heading into the next two months. The next two months is going to see them run eight race meetings – which are going to include the New South Wales, Queensland and Victorian Championships, as well as 50 Lapper events at Sydney Speedway and Brisbane International Speedway – within that period across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
“We’ve been struggling in recent months, as we’ve had a bit of bad luck, we’re running our new engine and also had a few rain outs along the way, which has been really disheartening for everyone within our team,” he said. “At first we weren’t going to come down [to Blue Ribbon Raceway], but thankfully we changed our minds, as we needed laps with our new engine and this victory has not only given us more track time with our new engine but also a big boost in confidence.”
This Saturday night (April 2) TFR and Brown are set to make their return to home soil, Sydney Speedway (Sydney, NSW), to contest the NSW Championship.
TFR are proudly supported in the 2010/11 season by Showpiece Signs and Designs, PASS Powdercoating & Sandblasting, Strategic Accounting Advisers Pty Ltd, Rondalee Metal Fabrication, Graphic Art Mart, Schweppes and C&C Combined.