IT may not have been a V8 Touring Cars championship round but it didn’t make the weekend’s racing at the Gold Coast any less intense for Bathurst’s Michael Anderson.
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Anderson wrapped up his 2018 campaign with a fourth place finish overall across his three races, calling his debut drive on the street circuit one of his best ever rounds of racing.
A reduced but still competitive field of 10 cars made their way to Queensland for the non-championship battle.
The round started in difficult fashion for Anderson and his team who struggled to get their Falcon feeling sound across both practice sessions.
Anderson didn’t move up in the standings during qualifying, finishing eighth, but it was during the moments that mattered most where the weekend began to improve.
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The Bathurst driver finished fifth in his opening two races before jumping up to fourth in the final event.
Race two provided the biggest thrills for Anderson who found himself in a battle pack, featuring Chris Smerdon ahead of him and Shane Hunt on his tail.
Anderson said his team did a great job to get the car in order for one last drive in 2018.
“It was one of the best weekends of racing we’ve had, but we had a bit of a mapping issue there on the Friday and that hampered our throttle position,” he said.
“We spent a bit more time than we would have liked trying to sort that out but after that we managed to get up to fifth in race one.
“The setup we went with was really good but with the throttle issue we spent more time chasing that unfortunately than setting the car up perfectly.
“We had some really good battles through the weekend.”
Anderson had never experienced the Gold Coast track before and relished the thrill of racing in narrow streets at high speed.
“It’s one of those weekends where if you hit the concrete then the concrete bites hard, and we saw examples of that,” he said.
“A couple of cars found the wall but luckily for us we brought the car home in the same condition we brought it up there in.
“We’re doing 260km/h down the straight with concrete both sides going into a chicane, but it’s still a very technical track so once you get the setup right it’s a really great track to drive on.
“We were lucky enough with the weather that it didn’t rain through any of our sessions, for once.”
Anderson finished this year’s V8 Touring Cars championship sixth overall following the final round at Tailem Bend.
The series will be re-branded next year as Super3, bringing it in line as the official third tier for Supercars.
The Bathurst 6 Hour is the next event on Anderson’s radar.