By Karl Reindler Racing 7:56 PM Wed 24 November, 2010
Source: V8 Supercars Australia
Karl Reindler's weekend at the Norton 360 Sandown Challenge was turned from race meeting to test session on Sunday thanks to early contact from a competitor.
The Fair Dinkum Sheds Commodore started Sunday's Race 24 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series on the harder compound tyres, and was spun out of contention by a soft tyre-shod Tony Ricciardello on Lap 4.
The incident saw Reindler spin into the infield at Turn 11, and lose a lap thanks to a resulting unscheduled pitstop.
With the chance of a competitive finish gone, Reindler set about experimenting with the Fair Dinkum Sheds Commodore's setup, which according to the West Australian was a fruitful task.
"It was quite a productive race in the end for us - surprisingly," said Reindler.
"Even though we were out of it early in terms of a result, we had runs on both tyre compounds, and spent a lot of the race running with the leading bunch.
"We caught up to (Garth) Tander in the middle of the last stint and learnt some of his lines around the track as well.
"As a first-year driver, you can always pick up a few things by tucking in behind an experienced guy like Garth."
As for the incident with Ricciardello, Reindler was understandably disappointed.
"There's not much to say really. He just came from nowhere and drove into my rear quarter panel - it felt like a really big hit," he said.
Reindler ended Sunday's race in 22nd position thanks to a bruising affair that saw three competitors lucky to walk away from sizeable accidents at the end of the back straight.
On Saturday, Reindler finished Race 23 of the championship in 24th after fighting an ill-handling car.
"We struggled in practice on Friday trying to get a good balance with the car, but we worked hard on it overnight and thought we had made some progress," Reindler reflected.
"Clearly we didn't, as we had horrible understeer, and it wouldn't respond to any of the adjustments I could make from inside the car."
With just one event for the year remaining, the Sydney Telstra 500 (December 3-5), the Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing crew will be looking to rebound from a tough Sandown to end a positive rookie season for Reindler on a high.
"This weekend has been really tough for our whole team, but we'll have to put it behind us and focus on doing a good job in Sydney," said Reindler.
"It'll be a great event, and hopefully we can recapture the sort of form we'd been showing up until this weekend, and finish my rookie season with another bag of points."
