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Drivers Definitely Beatable Says McLaughlin

Drivers Definitely Beatable Says McLaughlin

Lower Hutt driver James McLaughlin believes he has the goods with which to win the NZV8 Touring Cars TL Championship this season against an influx of talented veteran drivers into the series this year.

Past NZV8 drivers Kevin Williams, Andrew Anderson and Craig Baird have made a return to the iconic national championship for this season bringing some stiff competition for some of the younger and newer drivers in the series such as McLaughlin.

McLaughlin who led the championship for the majority of rounds last season and missed out on picking up the title at the final round after a weekend of misfortune showed he can run with these veterans by placing third at the opening round at Hampton Downs earlier this month.

"I think they are beatable, we can do it and just need to get to some tracks that we know. I definitely think they are all beatable and Craig is currently the benchmark so we need to knock him off." said McLaughlin.

"It's good to have him in the class to know whether you are good or not ." he said.

Hampton Downs was added to the NZV8TC calendar this year for the first time in the history of the series and McLaughlin was one of the many drivers who had little or no experience at the modern circuit just south of Auckland.

"I really enjoyed the first round and we have never been to this track with the car before and had no idea on what sort of a set up to run. We have an awesome crew who have done the hard yards and they managed to set the car up so we dropped four seconds (a lap) from when we first went out." said McLaughlin.

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Even so the driver who is in only his second season of NZV8 Touring Cars went out there to win and was leading race two for several laps against Baird, one of New Zealand's best known and top drivers of international acclaim, demonstrating he is up for any challenge the season throws up for him.

"I was leading race two and was pretty stoked to have held Baird out for seven laps when it was bumper to bumper. I made a little mistake and he jumped me but that's what a professional driver does, he doesn't make mistakes and he's always there."

McLaughlin finished third overall for the weekend behind Baird then Williams.

Next weekend the NZV8 Touring Cars TL Championship heads to Pukekohe Park Raceway along with their sister TLX class who complete the two tier national series. The NZV8 Touring Cars have a six round series wrapping up in April at the V8 Supercars event.

This time last year McLaughlin took out the Pukekohe round convincingly with two race wins and a second heralding what was to become a season of either winning rounds or suffering misfortune.

"Last year we only got first place trophies, we never had a second or a third and we either won the round or did really badly because the car was broken. Through the season we had only five races where we weren't on the podium." said McLaughlin.

McLaughlin expects he will be even quicker this season after work done on the car and support from a strong team including the talents of Sheldon Currington.

"We've made a few changes on the car we have new shocks and moved some weight around. So now we have the car reliable we are concentrating on fine tuning it, both the driver and the car."

"I have Sheldon who came on board at the end of the season last year. He built half of the cars in the field so knows what he's doing and has built Supercar chassis also." said McLaughlin.

For this season James McLaughlin Motorsport has become a two car Holden Commodore team after pairing up with Brendan Murphy from Featherston who has much racing experience including driving on the notorious Nurburgring.

He is a rookie to the NZV8 Touring Cars although previously connected through his company V8 Motor Importers.

"I think the one to beat this season is Baird but we still think we can beat him and he puts his boots on one foot at a time like the rest of us. Obviously Kevin Williams, Andrew Anderson and Brock Cooley plus we think Brendon can be up there too with our engineer working with him." said McLaughlin.

"For this year we want to go out and have a bit of fun and let the championship come to us, we want to drive smarter not harder. This is an awesome class to race in and somewhere where you can really improve your skills."

This season James McLaughlin Motorsport welcome continuing support from Realcold and Gree Airconditioning who came on board late last season and also remaining in support of the team are Xtrack and Carboglass.

James McLaughlin Motorsport are currently offering sponsorship and promotion opportunities with their team within the prestigious NZV8 Touring Cars Championship for aspiring businesses.

NZV8 Touring Cars Schedule
November 1-2 Hampton Downs (completed)
November 29-30 Pukekohe Park Raceway
January 17-18 Ruapuna Raceway
January 24-25 Teretonga Park
February 14-15 Manfeild Park
April 24-26 Pukekohe Park Raceway (V8 Supercars event)

ENDS

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