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9 September 2021 | General

Strong: ‘We’re starting to get on top of it’

ONE OF the Dunlop Super3 Series’ longstanding privateer runners is enjoying the challenge of getting up to speed with his ex-Kelly Racing VE Commodore.

Brendan Strong sits sixth in this year’s series, but stands within striking distance of a competitive fight for third in the third-tier of Supercars racing aboard his privately entered Commodore.

It’s been a rapid learning curve for his family-run team as they get up to speed with their current ride.

“We’ve come a long way since we’ve got the car. It’s taken a lot to get in tune and get in synch with it. We do it all ourselves, all the preparation,” Strong said.

“We’re getting some good pace out of it and work on our qualifying pace for now – we’ve got good race speed – but qualifying is tricky for us; a few tenths and we’ll be on it.

“I think it was 2017 I went out and bought a VX Lansvale Commodore. It was a bit outdated at the time, same thing – was hard to have that competitive edge against the later model cars. It was a hard road to match their times.

“We decided we needed to upgrade so we went out and bought the Kelly Racing KR2 car, off THR (Adelaide team, THR Developments), and from then it’s getting better.

“We’ve struggled, but we’re starting to get on top of it.”

“From the old car to the new car it’s a lot easier to drive, there’s a lot more data, a lot more adjustments, that we can rely on to get us up the front.

Strong said he was enjoying the challenge of going head to head with not only the top guns in Super3, but competing on the same bit of road as top-flight teams like Triple Eight in the Dunlop Super2 Series.

“We’re just a small family team. They’ve got a lot of resources behind them and it’s impressive how they go about their racing,” he said.

“It would be nice to be that professional but with the budget we’ve got we try to do the best we can.

“Those guys are super quick, it’s a bit of an honour to be out there racing with them.

“We’re out there, doing what we love, running a Supercar around them and loving it.”