THERE were plenty of home city chances looking to keep the visiting drivers at bay in the weekend’s Bathurst Motor Festival, but none stood taller than Brad Shiels’ last-to-podium effort in the second Production Sports race at Mount Panorama.
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In a disrupted race, Shiels used what little time he had between two long safety car periods to rally past more than 40 cars into third place.
Shiels had to start the race from the rear of the field after co-driver and team owner Andrew Macpherson crashed out in Saturday’s opener in wet conditions.
It was only two very experienced GT racing campaigners in Rod Salmon and Neale Muston – and perhaps a lack of time under his sleeve – that stopped Shiels from progressing any further.
The Bathurst driver was the second- fastest driver on track with a 2:12.4175 lap.
Shiels was thrilled with his progress both before and after the first safety car, but thought the second arrival of the yellow flag ended his podium hopes.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen. I thought it was going to keep going under safety car because that was a big crash at the top of the Mount,” he said.
“I knew it would be under safety car for a long time, but I knew we had about two laps to do it, so I just went my hardest, so it was really good.
“I kept looking down the line of cars and saw a lot of cars in front of me, so I thought I’d need to get it done quickly.”
Shiels still sat outside the top 10 when the green flag arrived with just five-and-a-half minutes to go.
There was no secret spot in which Shiels found time on the rest of the field. It was the entire circuit.
“It was just me having that bit of extra confidence around the circuit which made it work,” he said.
“It’s always good to get on the podium at Bathurst. I’m really happy and all the guys are happy.
“The weekend started off good, but had a dampener in the middle, and now we’ve finished on a high again. The car’s been awesome.”
It was a very welcome result for Shiels after he was denied a drive in the Porsche in the Bathurst 12 Hour when Macpherson came to grief at Forrest’s Elbow before the Bathurst driver stepped into the car.
“It’s not like the 12 Hour, but we still had five or six of the top class GT cars competing in this, so we did alright,” Shiels said.
The biggest concentration of home city drivers, four entries, was in the Group N Historic Touring Cars.
The best of those was Michael Anderson, who improved to a fourth place in the final Historic Touring Car race of the weekend after a sixth in the opener.
Steven Shiels also did a good job bouncing back from a DNF in the second Combined Sedans race on Saturday to find a weekend-high sixth place in the third race.
