Nathan Herne endured another luckless weekend at Lime Rock Park in the American TA2 series, and despite taking a fighting P5, he’s hoping Detroit’s double header can be a turning point.
After a long lay-off and extensive work on the Cube 3 Stevens-Miller Racing Mustang, Herne went into Round 4 at Connecticut confident that a string of bad luck would come to an end.
After putting the #29 Mustang into P4 in the opening practice, the “Lismore Bullet” only got in two qualifying laps in before his engine blew, giving the Aussie yet another mechanical set back and a nervous night.
An all-nighter form the Chicago based team had him back on the track after his two laps had him in P4, with the Aussie Jet just making the grid.
Early Issues with bottoming out had him struggling to keep the thing pointy, before a broken splitter affected his downforce.
After fighting it out to finish in P5, that put him second in the rookie battle, and lifted him into ninth in the overall championship standings, to still be in touch of the title chase for the long 13 round season.
“One bloody awesome effort by the boys and the rest of the crew at Stevens-Miller Racing,
We’re due for a change of luck eventually,” Herne said.
“We had to change 2 motors overnight, and only just made the grid pre-race, then I struggled with the car bottoming at the start of the race…it would just pick a direction and shoot that way once it hit the ground.
“It came to its own at the middle of the race once the fuel burnt off, although I dropped a wheel and broke the front splitter which took away all front downforce.
“Can’t thank the crew enough, they worked bloody hard. We just really need to have a good and smooth weekend soon, for everyone involved.
“We’ll keep punching on this week, and get her turned around for Detroit.”
Two races of 60 and 75 minutes now await Herne on the Detroit street circuit, where the series will be supporting the IndyCar as they return to a downtown Detroit circuit, on a 2.7 km, 9 turn track.
To watch Nathan Herne take on the downtown Detroit street circuit, click this link to watch it live and free on the GoTransAm YouTube channel.
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