A broken stabilizer in Race 19 ended an otherwise tough weekend for Scott Pye in the WD-40 Townsville SuperSprint.
Pye had the best result of the season at the opener on Sunday and climbed from outside the top 10 to sixth place.
It came after Team 18’s driver finished seventh in Race 17 on Saturday after starting 18th.
It was a turbulent weekend for Pye who, after leading the only practice session, battled for a lap of pace in qualifying.
However, as in Townsville in 2020, Pye’s car came alive in the races when it overtook 11 cars on Saturday and five in Sunday’s first 39-lap sprint.
On a bittersweet end to the weekend, however, Pye suffered a broken stabilizer in the first stint of Race 19.
“I am really disappointed after the last race. We broke the front stabilizer at the beginning of the race, that was a real shame,” said Pye, who finished 18th.
“We probably had our best car all weekend so we drove through the field and then ‘snap’ the front roll bar broke, but we held on to it as best we could.
“We could pretty much stay in the field until our tires started to fade and then after the pit stop we tried to fix it and that was the end of the field.
“We were hoping the connection would just be cut, but it actually broke, which put us out of the running, but we still turned 18.”
Pye’s strong results in the first two races put him in 13th place overall.
Teammate Mark Winterbottom achieved two top 10 finishes on the last day, but remained seventh overall.
“It was a great result that we lost today, but we finished sixth in the first race,” added Pye.
“Sixth place today after seventh place yesterday shows great progress and we would have achieved another top 5 or top 6 result if we hadn’t had this mechanical error.
“The guys did a great job of giving me a rocket off a car after the tough last couple of events.”
