After an off season stint in the USA young Auckland Sprint car ace Jamie McDonald is wishing his season here at Western Springs had started with a little less stress and hassle and more points on the board.

His team is developing an all new engine package together with engine builder Dan Haigh with a custom made engine block and custom built fuel injection. Unfortunately the build is taking longer than expected and a last minute effort to complete the engine was called off after an all night session at 6.30 am on the morning of opening night at the Springs.

After 1 hours sleep Jamie was awake again and getting set up to run a borrowed car. Palmerston North car owner Nick Pedley received a call from Jamie’s dad Bruce McDonald and cancelled his own plans to race that night at his home track. Pedley made the trip from Palmerston North to Auckland towing his race car to arrive at Western Springs in time for McDonald to warm the car up before his first heat race.

Body work and McDonald’s wing was fitted at the track in a last minute effort to get McDonald out on the track to qualify for the first National series feature race.

After qualifying for the feature McDonald ran 12 laps, one of which was the fastest of the race at 12.769 secs, before tangling with Raymond Griffen. Ossie Sokol was caught up in the incident and the Wynns car sustained too much damage to continue racing. McDonald also ended up out of the race and damaging the car. His hastily borrowed car sat out the last eight laps of an exciting feature on the infield and McDonald was forced to watch any chance of gaining National series points disappear as the race ran on without him.

“I really wanted to get points on the board in this first round said an exhausted McDonald, there was so much to do with the new engine and it just didn’t come together for us, it’s been a hell of a day!”

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