McElrea Racing

Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Round 3

Sandown International Raceway

Published on Tuesday, 20th of September 2022

Despite the pretty frightful weather predictions, the #AMRC (awesome MR crew) always looks forward to Sandown, another circuit where we've had great success and were confident of more great results.

The only change to our Michelin Sprint Challenge line-up was Tom McLennan has upgraded his car to a 991:2 so was now competing against Lockie and Aron in Pro class.

As it turned out, race 2 was cancelled due to rain and hail coming through on Saturday afternoon which made it a 2-race weekend instead of the normal 3 races.

McElrea Racing crew at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Brett Boulton

Brett Boulton #84

Pro-Am
Race Engineer
Andy McElrea
#1 Mechanic
Adam Coppock
R1
3
R2
1
Brett Boulton #84 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Brett Boulton #84 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Lockie Bloxsom

Lockie Bloxsom #23

Pro, Michelin Junior
Race Engineer
Leigh Geyer
#1 Mechanic
Tim McCumstie
R1
6
R2
3
Lockie Bloxsom #23 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Lockie Bloxsom #23 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Aron Shields

Aron Shields #116

Pro, Michelin Junior
Race Engineer
Leigh Geyer
#1 Mechanic
Stewart Notley-Smith
R1
3
R2
7
Aron Shields #116 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Aron Shields #116 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022
Richard Cowen

Richard Cowen #2

Pro-Am
Race Engineer
Andy McElrea
#1 Mechanic
Rob Clark
R1
9
R2
5

Richard Cowen #2

9th, 5th - Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge 'Pro-Am Class'
Richard Cowen with McElrea Racing in the Michelin Sprint Challenge Round 3 at Sandown Raceway 2022
Richard Cowen with McElrea Racing in the Michelin Sprint Challenge Round 3 at Sandown Raceway 2022
Tom McLennan

Tom McLennan #81

Pro, Michelin Junior
Race Engineer
Stephen Robinson
#1 Mechanic
Tobias Seibel
R1
5
R2
6
Tom McLennan #81 racing at Sandown International Raceway 2022

Summary

Congrats to Brett on his Pro-Am win, another great achievement for the big man. Richard also made huge progress taking 5th in Pro-Am in race 2 after finishing 9th in race 1.

We are super excited about the future with our three young Pro drivers. All 3 of them showing exceptional skill and maturity when we started them on slick tyres on a wet track for the 35 lap race 2. Our strategy was to simply survive for the first half of the race while the track slowly dried to a point where the slick tyres were quicker than the wets, but this plan was heavily reliant the relatively inexperienced drivers avoiding flying off the road in the first part of the race.

They all had moments of brilliance over the weekend including Lockie's charge through the field from 16th up to 3rd in race 2, Aron leading his first Sprint Challenge race on Saturday and Tom scything through the pack from 18th to 7th in race 2. The future is very bright for these kids.

McElrea Racing driver coaching at Sandown International Raceway 2022
McElrea Racing drivers at Sandown International Raceway 2022
McElrea Racing crew at Sandown International Raceway 2022