It’s been a busy week at Trading Post Racing this week. Brighty was back on deck after a Hamilton Island break.
The crew had put the finishing touched to his brand new V8 Supercar and had loaded the race truck late Sunday night, just in time to head to Winton for the cars “shakedown” on Monday and then full test day on Tuesday.

All went well with the new car on both the shake down and test day. Co driver Matt Halliday flew in from Belgium early Tuesday morning after racing in the Porsche Super Cup there on the weekend. He spent some time behind the wheel of the Trading Post Racing Commodore coming to grips with the new car. Matt had previously driven Brighty’s older car earlier in the season.

Wednesday, it was back to the workshop, where the drivers spent some time perfecting their “driver change” routine. The crew then stripped the car back for a final check over and clean up before starting the Phillip Island set up.

No rest for Brighty as he headed into the lunchtime post test debrief with engineer Phil Keed before driving back to Melbourne for an appearance at team sponsor Ryan Woodwork’s VIP night.
He was up early the next morning on a flight to Brisbane for two days of Trading Post appearances.

Trading Post co-driver, Matt Halliday, is en route to Winton Motor Raceway after a dramatic weekend at the notorious Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

The Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup driver finished eighth in changeable weather conditions, despite having a complete rebuild on his car in the run up to the event.

“It was a typically difficult Spa weekend with the weather making life hard,” said Halliday. “Qualifying went extremely well as the car had more to give but we took it cautiously with so many damp spots around. The race itself was run at a fast pace but we all had to drive on a definitive dry line which made overtaking quite dangerous.”

Halliday will get to drive the brand-new Trading Post Commodore at Winton tomorrow (Tuesday) after Jason Bright shook it down today.

“It all went OK; it was really just to check that all of the systems work and we weren’t going to have any problems when we start tomorrow,” said Bright.

“The car’s a lot lighter but it’s not something you feel. It’s just a given that the car is 20-something kilos lighter and that 20 kilos is placed in the car in a better position.”

Fishing fan Jason Bright got a special treat on a recent holiday to Hamilton Island when he met two of his heroes the Hillstrand brothers, stars of international TV phenomenon, Deadliest Catch.

The guys were special guests of the North Queensland holiday destination’s Race Week and brought some of their precious catch, the Alaskan Crab, for fellow guests to sample.

Bright met up with Captains Andy and Johnathan from the ‘Time Bandit’ vessel  and immediately struck up a friendship.

“They seemed quite different to each other,” said Bright.

“Johnathan certainly seemed like a pretty wild child; most of his toys consisted of horsepower and other adrenalin machines.

“We got to eat some of the Alaskan Crab they caught. It’s obviously a very unique crab that’s only found in that part of the world and due to the size of it you get some very good meat.”

The Trading Post Racing paint and panel department have been flat out during the mid season break manufacturing the next generation door skins for Jason Bright’s Trading Post Racing Commodore and team mates Jason Richards and Karl Reindler’s Commodores.

The latest, state of the art door skin is a Kevlar/ Fibreglass combination which, when constructed is 60% lighter than the steel door skins run previously. As always, teams are striving for any advantage and a weight saving to this degree is a real bonus for the engineers when it comes time for car set up.

The process involves bonding a layer of Kevlar with 3 layers of differing gauges of fiberglass in a door skin mould. Resin added between each layer is the bonding agent. A layer of foam is placed prior to the last layer of fibre glass.

The bonding process seals the layers by forcing the resin through the layers with the aid of an air pump. An overnight stay in the oven helps the bonding and shortens the timeframe.

The crew removes the sealing tape from the mould and the finished door skin weights in at just under 2 kgs.
The Kevlar door skins will now feature on all three Brad Jones Racing V8 Supercars. Rear doors and passenger side doors only will replace the current steel skins as V8 Supercar safety regulations still require driver’s doors to be all steel construction.

Brighty made the trip up the Hume Hwy from Melbourne this morning to spend some time with engineer Phil Keed and to jump in behind the wheel of his new chassis to check the seating position.

Today has been another step in the journey that will end when the brand new Trading Post Racing Commodore will be debuted at the team’s pre Phillip Island test day at the end of August.

Brighty is excited about the prospects the new car will bring to the team.
“The new chassis will certainly compliment what Phil and the guys have achieved so far this year. All the hard work finding the right set up on the old chassis will flow onto the new car. Unlike other teams who build new cars regularly, I’m expecting the difference in the new chassis compared to the 2007 spec chassis I’ve run this year will be enormous. “

The Bare metal chassis, no 011 arrived from Walkinshaw Performance 6 weeks ago. It was initially placed on the team’s jig to check mounting points. The faby boys then got to work fitting the chassis for it’s ride seat.

The next stop was the teams paint shop where the crew rubbed back the roll cage, primed and then painted the chassis with a coat of that great PPG product.

The mechanics then got their hands on the chassis to fit the air jacks, oil and gear box coolers. The cars new pedal box was fitted along with the steering rack and column. The massive job of installing the cars wiring loom was next while under the bonnet, oil tanks, manufactured in house were fitted.

The fuel cell was next to be fitted and the first of the cars new kelvar paneling was attached.

Just this morning the car’s power plant was installed….. Stay tuned for more updates as we get ready for the cars debut at the end of the month.

Brighty’s enduro partner, Matt Halliday, was racing alongside the Formula One stars in Budapest last weekend, but his Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup round came to an abrupt end on the first lap.

The New Zealander, who is currently 12th in the F1 support category’s standings, was involved in a six-car shunt from 13th on the grid. It is the second time this year he has not reached the chequered flag through no fault of his own.

Although describing himself as “a bit sore” after the race, he did not suffer any injuries in the high speed incident.

“I got another really good start and was just holding my line on the inside of Turn 4,” he said. “I wasn’t close to anybody, when a car came across the track and hit heavily in my door. The next thing I knew there were cars going everywhere just like a NASCAR race. I don’t know whose fault it was but it’s really hard to accept and bitterly disappointing.”

The next round is Belgium’s historic Spa-Franchorchamps circuit on August 29th before Halliday heads Down Under for the L&H 500 at Phillip Island.

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.<