Although originating from the Australian Capital Territory, Cameron Hill is looking forward to returning to Sydney Motorsport Park for what he considers his home Repco Supercars Championship event.
Currently on a strong run of results, Hill will be determined to continue his good form this weekend at the Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight, which marks the second last round before Supercars begins its season of endurance races.
The Canberran will enjoy plenty of support for the event, including his family and friends from above the pit lane, and local organisations, which will adorn the doors of his Matt Stone Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 as Supaglass Industries returns after taking up the primary spot at Taupo and Perth.
Hill enters the weekend after a strong run in Townsville where he picked up top 10 results in each of the 250km events. Race pace was the key factor to Hill’s superb charges through the field in Townsville.
Townsville was just the second time this season Hill had failed to qualify inside the top 10, but a tyre anomaly proved a challenge for the team up north.
For this weekend, a pair of shorter 200km races await Hill and the rest of the Supercars field at Sydney Motorsport Park where qualifying will be a factor, while those same tyre issues should not occur again.
It’s always a spectacular sight under the lights at Sydney Motorsport Park on the Saturday night making it a popular event among drivers and fans alike.
The Panasonic Air Conditioning Sydney SuperNight will commence on July 19-21.
QUOTES
Cameron Hill
#4 Supaglass Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
“It’s as close to a home event as I can have being a few hours away from Canberra and it’s a track I know really well having spent a lot of time there in the past,” said Hill.
“I like the track, I always have and it’s going to be a big weekend.
“Off the track, we’ve got a lot of our sponsor group coming, which will be really cool to have them altogether to cheer us on. It’ll be a busy week, but I’m lucky to have a good team around me and hopefully I can only worry about driving.
“We had an awesome run in Townsville. The race car was really fast and I felt like I had two of my strongest race performances. I was able to look after my tyres enabling me to move forward late in the races. It was really satisfying to have a pair of good performances.
“We have to fix some things in qualifying, we were struggling a bit in that area. If we can get on top of that, I’m really keen to see what we’re able to achieve.
“I think we were caught out by the tyre batch issues that also hampered Triple Eight as well. Matt Stone Racing and Triple Eight are very closely aligned including sharing the same set-up philosophy.
“I did run on a set of tyres from Perth in practice and I thought my car was good, but when we got on the Townsville batch we were lacking overall grip. That was a real head scratcher because if it was one end of the car, it can be fixed reasonably quickly, but when you feel like you’re lacking front and rear, it’s a real problem. We were a little bit stumped with the qualifying car, but it didn’t seem to worry us during the races as the car looked after its tyres well to help us get two strong race results.
“I love night racing. As a spectacle it looks fantastic, while racing at night helps the racing product as one thing we’re always battling are the tyres getting too hot, but under lights they hang on a lot better.
“I’m back in the Supaglass livery for Sydney. I think it’s a really good looking one and we had some really good performances in it, so hopefully it bodes well for Sydney Motorsport Park.”
SCHEDULE
Friday, July 19
Practice - 5:00pm AEST
Saturday, July 20
Qualifying Race 15 - 2:50pm AEST
Top 10 Shootout Race 15 - 4:55pm AEST
Race 15 - 7:35pm AEST
Sunday, July 21
Qualifying Race 16 - 12:05pm AEST
Top 10 Shootout Race 16 - 1:40pm AEST
Race 16 - 4:05pm AEST
