It was an adventurous weekend for Queensland native Brendan Cook and the #25 Transquip Hire Cook Racing Team as they experienced all the thrills and spills of MINI Challenge racing during the series’ penultimate round – Armor All Gold Coast 600 – last weekend.
With just one practice session for the event ‘Cookie’ was haunted with gearbox issues after having to hold the car in third gear, just to get the laps in for the test session. This meant an entire gearbox and clutch change which was vigorously performed by Cook Racing Technicians but unfortunately time fell by and, as a result, Cook missed qualifying and was forced to start Race 1 from the rear of the grid.
"It’s a shame we couldn’t get everything fixed in time for Qualifying but the boys did a great job in getting the car ready for Race 1 considering they had to pull the car apart all day to have her ready for the race start at 5pm.
"Lucky three of my dedicated sponsors are all in the Crane industry because I had to call on their services to use a mini lift crane to pull the entire engine out so we could do a proper job of replacing the gearbox and clutch!" said Cook.
Despite the setback, Gold Coast-born Cook was determined to make up for lost track time and carved up the second half of the field to finish Race 1 six places ahead of his grid position in 10th overall. After a night’s rest Race 2 got underway at 11am Saturday morning with Cookie poised to attack starting 10th on the grid.
After six laps the former Gold Coast Rugby League rep had moved up 2 places and was on a charge through the field until disaster struck. At 180km/h the front-right-hand wheel studs sheared right off his MINI R56, sending Cookie down the track as a three-wheeled passenger! Fortunately he avoided all concrete walls on the street circuit and managed to guide the car off-track and down the run-off area at the end of back straight.
"When the wheel studs shear off like that you have no warning its coming so I was very lucky to get the car off the track in a safe area without doing any damage to the rest of it.
"It’s not so fun driving your MINI past all your sponsors as they’re all enjoying a beer and the race when you’re on three wheels and trying to dodge concrete safety barriers!" commented Cook.
With a rather eventful Friday and Saturday wrapped-up Cookie headed to the track for the third and final MINI Challenge race of the weekend on Sunday morning. Cookie again started from 16th on the grid but, like a man possessed, absolutely blitzed the field and by lap 5 was sitting pretty in eighth position.
With a ‘hard-out’ mentality the Brisbane-based driver continued to push to the limit only to come unstuck for the third and final time when the right-hand steering arm collapsed due to contact with back chicane tyre bundle.
"That was my blue in Race 3 but after what happened over the weekend I had to push as hard as I could to try and gain places and, more importantly, points in the championship.
"It wasn’t the ideal end to an event where we started our 50th MINI Challenge race but its positive to know after just 5 laps I was able to overtake half the field and have some fun going flat-out through the streets of Surfers Paradise." said Cook.
Cook remains 6th in the overall standing for this year’s Hertz MINI Challenge –delivered by Pizza Capers and will contest the final round for 2010 in December when Cook Racing heads to Homebush for the Telstra Sydney 500.
