The combination of Nathan Pretty and Mark Noske endured a tough debut with the Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport (LDM) team during last weekend’s L&H 500 at Phillip Island Raceway in Victoria.

Despite the difficult initiation both Pretty and Noske were able to draw more positives than negatives from the L&H 500 weekend, with one being the speed that the pair had shown aboard the # 30 Gulf Western Oil supported VE Holden Commodore without any prior testing.

“We certainly didn’t achieve our desired result, but the whole team worked well together and both Mark and I had good pace straight away and they were two of the most pleasing aspects to come out of the weekend,” Pretty commented. “I started the race on Sunday and had made a great start when I moved from 25th on the grid up to 19th within the opening lap. On the second lap I became concerned about the tyres as I was experiencing a lot of understeer through the corners and on the 15th lap I pitted to change tyres and we consequently went down a lap early on.”

With new tyres onboard the understeer went away and the pace improved for Pretty, but losing a lap left the team LDM team on the back foot for the remainder of the race and they finished back in a disappointing 24th place.

Pretty’s team-mate, Noske, although equally disappointed in the end result was confident that they can achieve a Top 10 result at next month’s Bathurst 1000.

“Heading into the Bathurst 1000 Nathan [Pretty] and I are very excited about it and the goal is a Top 10 result and anything less is going to be considered a disappointment,” Noske stated. “Although we had a tough weekend at the L&H 500 we were able to use it to jell with the team and work on our speed. With Nathan and I being part time drivers it was always going to be a tough task especially around a circuit like Phillip Island as the competition is just so even and circuit so fast. At Bathurst experience is one of the keys to a good result and both Nathan I are able to take added confidence into Bathurst because of that factor.”

Over the past 10 years both Pretty and Noske have recorded multiple Top 10 finishes in the Bathurst 1000.

The Bathurst 1000, which is also the next round of the V8 Supercar Championship, is going to be held on the weekend of October 9 – 10.