Sherrin Racing took a clean sweep at Bathurst’s sixth round of the Dunlop Series, scoring pole position and both race victories with driver Steve Owen.
The experienced Owen recorded pole position by an impressive 0.6s on Friday morning with a lap time that would have put him 11th on the grid for Sunday’s Bathurst 1000.
Having earlier scored the number one grid slot at the Perth and Townsville rounds, the achievement ensured Owen the season’s Armor All Pole Award for most poles over the season.
The start of Race 1 proved the weekend’s only truly tense moment for Owen, who was forced to out-muscle MW Motorsport stable-mate Dale Wood at the first corner.
From there, the two races had similar complexions, with Owen driving away from the field while managing his tyres in order to be able to fight at the end.
“Bathurst is such an amazing track and there is nothing better than having a good car around here,” said Owen afterward. “We obviously had a good gap in qualifying and in the first race we managed to pull a four second lead within six laps. At the same time I needed to manage the tyres in case the Safety Car came, which it eventually did in both races. We were able to hold of Dale both times which made it a dream weekend for us. Driving the Sherrin Ford this year really has been the perfect preparation for the Bathurst 1000.”
Owen’s dominant qualifying performance hadn’t simply been the work of two minutes and eight seconds on Friday morning.
The team had to work at the set-up through Thursday’s practice sessions before getting the Sherrin Ford in the sweet spot.
“We didn’t have the pace in practice, Steve and myself went in a different direction to what Dale did and we struggled to make it work,” said team owner Matthew White… “But some further adjustments for qualifying hit the nail on the head and Steve did a good job to get a lap in amongst the traffic. From there we couldn’t really have asked for any more from the weekend as the races provided two great wins for Steve and a lot of solid points for Dale. Bathurst is a big event for the Dunlop Series so to have the Sherrin Ford lead the pack was a great reward for everyone involved in the team.”
The Dunlop Series will conclude with a seventh and final round on the streets of Sydney Olympic Park from December 6 to 8.
