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Costly failure dampens Holdsworths’ weekend

A broken universal joint has catapulted Brett Holdsworth down the National Trans Am Series standings after a promising start to the weekend at Phillip Island.

With the series part of the third round of the Shannons SpeedSeries, Holdsworth found himself in title contention after a podium in race one and a P6 finish in race two elevated the Victorian to second in the standings.

Unfortunately, race three didn’t go the way he would have had hoped for, with the Ashley Seward Motorsport driver retiring from the race.

The mechanical failure left a rather large dint in Holdsworth’s series title aspirations, with the final race having had extra points on offer.

The team later discovered that a broken universal joint was the cause of the race ending failure, dropping Holdsworth down to 10th in the standings after two rounds and 90 points behind the points leader James Moffat.

Despite the disappointing result, Holdsworth took plenty of positives out of the race weekend and is hopeful for a better result at Winton.

“That result is devastating to be honest,” Holdsworth said.

“It’s the first time we’ve failed to finish a race since I joined Ash (Seward) at the start of 2022. Pretty much all of the other championship contenders had trouble in the first two races and we’d vaulted into second in the standings, we just needed to finish that last race and we’d have been at least third in the points heading to Winton.

“The weekend certainly wasn’t a write off though, I feel like we’ve really nailed our qualifying speed which is half the battle. If we can iron out why we’re struggling in the first couple of laps in each race, then we’ll be in a very good place for the rest of the year.

“We actually had the fastest car on combined sector times in that opening race, so the pace is definitely there.

“Winton is a completely different track to Phillip Island, we’ll see if that shakes up the order at all.”

The National Trans Am Series will next feature at the Winton Raceway as part of the fourth round of the Shannons SpeedSeries on 9-11 June.