Australian Production Car Series’ Justin Anthony believes that he and co-driver Karl Begg are ready to make the step up from the A2 class into contending for the outright podium.
When the duo line up on the grid during the Shannons Nationals at Queensland Raceway, it will mark just under one full year in the sport, after making their debut in the corresponding race last year.
Since finishing seventh in their debut last year, the duo have since made big strides in developing the car they built from scratch to get it to a competitive level.
“We have done some upgrades to the car which we will test next week,” Anthony said.
“It’s a slow process and we just want to knock one thing over at a time, so right now we’re just looking at getting handling right and stoping right.
“We always intended to build a car to not only compete in A2 but A1 and eventually outright and while we have outright pace sorted, we need to improve our power down.”
When Anthony and Begg entered the series opening round at Sandown in May with a goal to have fun and test out a few tweaks, their low expectations were exceeded when they took out the class win and sixth outright.
Now that the BMW E92 M3 pilots have had more time in the car and shown positive development and results, Anthony believes the bar for their season has now been raised.
“We go into every round hoping to get a win or at least an outright podium,” Anthony said.
“When we competed at the Bathurst 6 Hour, the aim was just an A2 class win, but then management realised that we can take it to the top of outright, so we had to start aiming for high outright positions rather than win A2 classes.
“At Queensland, we will come out pretty disappointed if we can’t get an outright podium at least.”
Currently leading the A2 class, Anthony and Begg are within touching distance of Grant and Iain Sherrin who occupy third position in the outright standings.
With the Boss Surveillance team’s focus now shifting to Queensland Raceway round later this month, their main focus will on reliability and taking the next step towards that desired outright podium and climb the standings.
The Shannons Nationals takes places at Queensland Raceway in Ipswich on 27-29 July, with live coverage of Sunday’s session once again to be available for viewing via speedseries.com.au.
Tickets are available at the gate.