On Tuesday 27th July some lucky VIP’s got to experience the adrenaline of a V8 Supercar hotlap with Jason Bright

For all those Trading Post Racing fans, V8 Superstar Jason Bright will be appearing at one of our other fantastic sponsors this Saturday morning. Western Star trucks have opened a brand new mega Truck facility at Derrimut in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

If you’d like to come and meet Brighty, he will be there along with team mate Jason Richards and the awesome Trading Post V8 Supercar. The team is also taking JR’s Team BOC Commodore and the giant B Double transporter.

Venue : Western Star TruckS
Address: 1 Australis Ave Derrimut Vic.
Date: Saturday 24th July
Time: 10am – 12 midday

The previous two rounds in Darwin and Townsville the cabin temperatures climbed to an incredible 60 degrees. No amount of air conditioning can cool that sort of intense heat.

Instead the team uses a system that keeps the driver cool.

The cooling process involves circulating icy cold water from an esky positioned beside the driver through a shirt worn under the driver’s suits called a “cool suit”. The cool suit has a system of piping covering front and back.

The water used in the process is stored in a small reservoir mounted externally. It is pumped from the reservoir through a system of pipes to a small heater exchanger mounted in the floor of the esky.

Dry ice stacked inside the esky and on top of the heat exchanger ensures the water circulating through the system runs close to its freezing point.

The system proved the answer in Darwin, when cabin temps were close to 60 degrees, the water circulating through the suit was measured at 0.5 degrees.<

Brighty is currently about 140 nautical miles off Mackay’s coast, bottom bouncing and trolling.

It is the third time Jason has accompanied personal sponsor, CAT, on the annual jaunt.

He should be back in service and on Terra Firma this Saturday, when the team is expecting fish suppers for the entire V8 mid-season break!

Trading Post Racing’s Jason Bright and team mate Karl Reindler found time in their busy Townville 400 schedules to visit with the kids at Townsville Hospital.

It proved a welcome distraction for the youngsters who asked plenty of questions about the race cars , the Townsville 400 and how they got started in racing.

Brighty said the visits were always an enjoyable experience for the drivers,

“Obviously any time kids are in hospital is a pretty tough time for them and they’re probably a bit confused and don’t know what’s going on so I was good to come along and put a smile on their faces and sign some posters for them.”

Brighty also said it was good to meet some of the parents who were under the strain of having a sick child in hospital.

Brighty’s brand new Trading Post Racing Commodore has moved onto the next step on its journey to the starting grid.

The spray painters have been busy back at the work shop rubbing back the chassis and preparing it for its primer coat before the final coats of gloss. After moving the chassis from the fab shop, the guys spent a full day deoxidizing the chassis removing the surface rust and “cleansing “ the chrome moly in preparation for the primer coat.

One coat of PPG epoxy primer is closely followed by the first coat of PPG Dynamic White.

The bonding of the primer coat and final coat requires a “wet on wet” process. A second coat of white finishes the job.

Due to the intricate bar design on the chassis, the paint job was done in three stages, with each third of the job completed before moving onto the next.

The chassis is now ready for the teams return to work following the Townsville round, where the fit out process will commence.

Qualifying set-up was the priority this weekend and with two top-five starting positions at Townsville Jason Bright seems to have come a long way in the Trading Post Racing Commodore.

Brighty was threatening for a podium right until the last few laps of today’s race but, with the chequered flag in sight, disaster struck as the engine temperatures soared.

The car limped home in 18th but Brighty is looking to the positives, saying  the lessons learnt at this track will be invaluable for the planned test before the next race meeting at Phillip Island on September 10.

Jason Bright
Trading Post Racing
“I stuffed up early on and locked the rears letting Will Davison through. I felt as though we had more pace than him but couldn’t afford to lose a position so we pitted early and showed how much pace we had by putting in some of the fastest laps of the race and popping out fourth in front of those guys. That put us in pretty good shape in terms of track position and I felt we definitely had potential for the podium.

“I think we’ve had better race pace potential at other rounds. At Winton we certainly did but didn’t qualify as well. We’ve certainly taken a step forward in qualifying speed here but this surface is very different to any other we go to and it definitely showed up a lot of things and gives us a lot of new directions to test.

“You’ve got to go to a lot of circuits before you learn a car really well. The surface at Townsville was probably the last type we needed to try. We’ve shown we have a good low-grip and good high-grip set-ups so hopefully we can learn a lot at our test.”

Brad Jones
Team Co-Owner
“I thought car 14 had a great race. They were in and about the top six the whole race thanks to good strategy so to have it break two laps from the end, I’m absolutely gutted”

Jason Bright V8 STATS
Current championship position:  19
Current championship points:  845
V8 Supercar Championship race starts: 344
Previous best Townsville qualifying: 4 (2010)
Previous best Townsville result: 16 (2009)

Sucrogen Townsville 400-V8 Supercar Championship
TOWNSVILLE STREET CIRCUIT
Races 16 Qualifying
01 Jamie Whincup, 888, 1:12.7275*
02 Craig Lowndes, 888, +0.2820
03 Garth Tander, HRT, +0.3727
04 James Courtney, DJR, +0.3986
05 Jason Bright, Trading Post Racing, +0.4332
06 Mark Winterbottom, FPR, +0.5499
07 Will Davison, HRT, +.5603
08 Jason Richards, Team BOC, +0.5939
09 Steven Johnson, DJR, +0.6160
10 Steven Richards, FPR, +0.6165

Sucrogen Townsville 400-V8 Supercar Championship
TOWNSVILLE STREET CIRCUIT
Races 16
01 Mark Winterbottom, FPR
02 James Courtney, DJR
03 Garth Tander, HRT
04 Paul Dumbrell, RNR
05 Steve Richards, FPR
06 Will Davison, HRT
07 Shane Van Gisbergen, SBR
08 Jason Richards, Team BOC
09 Jonathan Webb, SBR
10 Jason Bargwanna, Kelly Racing
18 Jason Bright, Trading Post Racing

Engine temperatures ground Trading Post Racing to a halt today when Jason Bright had to retire from a strong sixth place after qualifying a season-best fourth.

Brighty survived several tricky situations during the 200km Townsville race, the most memorable of which was James Courtney running into team-mate Steve Johnson directly in front of him during the opening laps.

Bright was right on the bumper of Courtney at the time, almost being taken out himself, and has now called for the stewards to take action.

Qualifying for tomorrow’s race begins at 11am

Jason Bright
Trading Post Racing
“Courtney was just being an idiot and took out his own team-mate; I wouldn’t want to be in that team briefing! He just went into the back of Stevie at Turn One and if the stewards don’t penalize him there’s something wrong.

“We really struggled at the start of the race but the second stint was better and we made another change in that last pit stop which would have made us better again I’m sure. Unfortunately the cylinder head in the engine cracked; there was no warning, it just went sick that lap.”

Brad Jones
Team Co-Owner
“Really disappointing; we just can’t get a break at the moment. There’ll be an engine change tonight and the fact they’ve got the pace to qualify fourth is just an indication of the great job they’re doing. We’ve got two extremely strong cars at the moment. ”

Jason Bright V8 STATS
Current championship position:  19
Current championship points:  794
V8 Supercar Championship race starts: 343
Previous best Townsville qualifying: 8 (2009)
Previous best Townsville result: 16 (2009)

Sucrogen Townsville 400-V8 Supercar Championship
TOWNSVILLE STREET CIRCUIT
Races 15 Qualifying
01 Jamie Whincup, 888,1:13.3223*
02 Mark Winterbottom, FPR, +0.3138
03 Garth Tander, HRT, +0.5415
04 Jason Bright, Trading Post Racing, +0.5636
05 James Courtney, DJR, +0.5900
06 Steven Johnson, DJR, +0.6193
07 Fabian Coulthard, Walkinshaw Performance, +0.6848
08 Lee Holdsworth, GRM, +0.6926
09 Shane Van Gisbergen, SBR, +1.2025
10 Craig Lowndes, 888, +1.3394

25 Jason Richards, Team BOC, 1:14.2771

Sucrogen Townsville 400-V8 Supercar Championship
TOWNSVILLE STREET CIRCUIT
Races 15
01 Jamie Whincup, 888
02 Garth Tander, HRT
03 Mark Winterbottom, FPR
04 Lee Holdsworth, GRM
05 James Courtney, DJR
06 Russell Ingall, PMM
07 Jason Richards, Team BOC
08 Shane Van Gisbergen, SBR
09 Steve Richards, FPR
10 Paul Dumbrell, RNR
DNF Jason Bright, Trading Post Racing

Aussie legends INXS experienced “Afterglow” V8 Supercar-style on Friday when Jason Bright took lead singer J.D. Fortune for a spin around the Townsville street track.

Strapped into the car, Fortune was wide-eyed as he told the media: “If I don’t make it, tell my mother I love her! I’m serious; tell her I

love her.”

Five minutes and 260kph later, Fortune was hugging Brighty and telling the  world V8s is the new rock and roll. “I kept thinking, ‘this isn’t so bad’; and then BOOM!” he said. “It’s almost as good as being in this band!”

Brighty said that Fortune’s reaction was possibly the most enthusiastic he’d ever seen. “It’s days like this you really enjoy; seeing someone get so excited,” said the Trading Post Racing driver. “He was certainly pretty vocal in the passenger seat!”

INXS will be playing the Rock n Race concert tonight for all Townsville race goers.

Sixth place in today’s practice at Townsville has given Jason Bright confidence for this weekend’s racing, although he says the team is still chasing the perfect qualifying balance.

Bright has excelled at high-grip circuits in the past and says Townsville should suit him very well in the Trading Post Racing Commodore.

Qualifying for tomorrow’s race begins at 10.50am

Jason Bright
Trading Post Racing
“I think we’ve got huge potential this week. I’ve always done well on really grippy circuits and this certainly qualifies as that.

“We probably weren’t aggressive enough with set-up when we put the greens on but we’ve got a range to play with for tomorrow. We’ve got to go through everything that we did and figure out what to run in qualifying because we’re not quite there yet. Even so, I expect to be up there. We’ve got a good car that we improved throughout the day.”

Brad Jones
Team Co-Owner
“I felt that they were making good progress through the day although struggling a little bit with some braking issues. It’s a solid top ten position and really Jason has been in or around the top 12 the whole day so hopefully they’re getting on top of their qualifying package, but we’ll know for sure tomorrow.”

Jason Bright V8 STATS
Current championship position:  17
Current championship points:  794
V8 Supercar Championship race starts: 342
Previous best Townsville qualifying: 8 (2009)
Previous best Townsville result: 16 (2009)

Sucrogen Townsville 400-V8 Supercar Championship
TOWNSVILLE STREET CIRCUIT
Races 15 & 16 – Practice (Combined)
01 Jason Richards, Team BOC, 1:12.9513*
02 Jamie Whincup, 888, +0.0157
03 Garth Tander, HRT, +0.1089
04 Craig Lowndes, 888, +0.3303
05 Tony D’Alberto, TDR, +0.4933
06 Jason Bright, Trading Post Racing, +0.5125
07 Steve Richards, FPR, +0.5141
08 James Courtney, DJR, +0.5591
09 Fabian Coulthard, Walkinshaw Performance, +0.5791
10 Will Davison, HRT, +0.6462