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GRAND-AM
IN THE COCKPIT: Jason Bright: Welcome, Bargs
Last month Jason Bargwanna was announced as my new teammate, standing in for Jason Richards whilst he undergoes Chemo.
Jason Bargwanna will take over the BOC-sponsored Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore usually driven by Jason Richards, and will partner with SPEED.com V8 Supercars columnist Jason Bright. (BJR)
I’ve always rated Jason Bargwanna (Bargs) as one of the better drivers out there and this year, with the right equipment, I’m sure he’ll be very competitive once he finds his feet in the team.
I’ve known Bargs for a long time. I raced against him in Formula Ford right through until now. He’s had some really good results but, unfortunately in motorsport, you’ve got to be with the right team at the right time or be able to make that team right for you.
On two occasions Bargs’ team withdrew from the series and on another the team has obviously sold his drive off. It doesn’t leave you with the foundation you need to build success; you don’t get to enjoy the fruits of what you’ve surrounded yourself with.
Having said that, I think he’s fallen on his feet this time. I can say, pretty confidently, that what he’s stepped into here will be more competitive than what he stepped into at GRM, WPS, Larkham or the Kellys from the word go. He won’t have to do the building process as much as he has in the past.
He was pretty happy with the car on the official test day at Eastern Creek last month, even though we never really hit our straps.
We actually ended up in the top-three fastest overall but I think we probably would have been a bit further back if the other front-runners had had good tyres. Fortunately I also know that there were a few areas where we could have done a lot better than we did.
The interesting thing was that we worked away none-stop at trying to fix things but just never really get on top of it. Then, when we were sitting back at the end of the day with a clearer head and no rush, some of those things ended up being self-explanatory.
It turned out that we’d made a few little changes going into the test that were subsequently blamed for our problems. In hindsight, it was something else. That meant we ended up chasing our tail all day but, considering we didn’t put our best foot forward, I felt we were pretty competitive.
That test showed BJR on a bad day and we were still there or thereabouts. Every time we put on a new set of tyres we’d pop back up into the top three so, in my opinion, we can expect to go to any track and aim to be in the top three on a bad day. If we’re doing everything right we can be quickest on any given day. If we’re not in the top three or four at every track we go to now, then we’re not doing a good job on that weekend. The car has proven to be competitive on enough different tracks now that we should be able to translate that everywhere.
That’s been a year in the making and was a joint effort between the crew, the engineers and both drivers so it was great to see JR back for a few laps during the test.
He and I are quite similar in that the car, its problems and trying to understand what the problems are takes up a lot of our time.
When you’ve got two people as keen to understand and learn talking things through, it’s always productive. The closer he can stay to the sport the better for everyone.
~Jason
Jason Bright races in the V8 Supercar Championship with Trading Post Racing. He is a race winner in the category and finished third in the standings in 2001 and 2004. He progressed to V8s after a successful single-seater career, which included winning the 1995 Australian Formula Ford Championship and finishing sixth in the 2000 Indy Lights series with five podiums.
Learn more about Jason by visiting www.jasonbright.com.au and on his official Facebook page.
I’ve known Bargs for a long time. I raced against him in Formula Ford right through until now. He’s had some really good results but, unfortunately in motorsport, you’ve got to be with the right team at the right time or be able to make that team right for you.
On two occasions Bargs’ team withdrew from the series and on another the team has obviously sold his drive off. It doesn’t leave you with the foundation you need to build success; you don’t get to enjoy the fruits of what you’ve surrounded yourself with.
Having said that, I think he’s fallen on his feet this time. I can say, pretty confidently, that what he’s stepped into here will be more competitive than what he stepped into at GRM, WPS, Larkham or the Kellys from the word go. He won’t have to do the building process as much as he has in the past.
He was pretty happy with the car on the official test day at Eastern Creek last month, even though we never really hit our straps.
We actually ended up in the top-three fastest overall but I think we probably would have been a bit further back if the other front-runners had had good tyres. Fortunately I also know that there were a few areas where we could have done a lot better than we did.
The interesting thing was that we worked away none-stop at trying to fix things but just never really get on top of it. Then, when we were sitting back at the end of the day with a clearer head and no rush, some of those things ended up being self-explanatory.
It turned out that we’d made a few little changes going into the test that were subsequently blamed for our problems. In hindsight, it was something else. That meant we ended up chasing our tail all day but, considering we didn’t put our best foot forward, I felt we were pretty competitive.
That test showed BJR on a bad day and we were still there or thereabouts. Every time we put on a new set of tyres we’d pop back up into the top three so, in my opinion, we can expect to go to any track and aim to be in the top three on a bad day. If we’re doing everything right we can be quickest on any given day. If we’re not in the top three or four at every track we go to now, then we’re not doing a good job on that weekend. The car has proven to be competitive on enough different tracks now that we should be able to translate that everywhere.
That’s been a year in the making and was a joint effort between the crew, the engineers and both drivers so it was great to see JR back for a few laps during the test.
He and I are quite similar in that the car, its problems and trying to understand what the problems are takes up a lot of our time.
When you’ve got two people as keen to understand and learn talking things through, it’s always productive. The closer he can stay to the sport the better for everyone.
~Jason
Jason Bright races in the V8 Supercar Championship with Trading Post Racing. He is a race winner in the category and finished third in the standings in 2001 and 2004. He progressed to V8s after a successful single-seater career, which included winning the 1995 Australian Formula Ford Championship and finishing sixth in the 2000 Indy Lights series with five podiums.
Learn more about Jason by visiting www.jasonbright.com.au and on his official Facebook page.
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