Sharpe Takes Championship Points in Adelaide

The first meeting of the season was again held at Adelaide’s challenging street circuit as part of the ‘Clipsal 500’. This was the first of seven rounds that Sharpe would be contesting in 2007 with the joint ASM and Howard Racing team. Sharpe has moved from his AU into the newer Cardstream-backed BA – driven by Mark Howard in 2006 – and previous testing times at Queensland Raceway proved this to be a strong move forward.

The weekend started off well with a strong first practice on Thursday seeing Sharpe’s Cardstream Ford Falcon finish the session in 11th, with plenty of development to take place to improve lap times further. However, the second practice was ended early due to a transmission failure. “Going from turn seven into the fast turn eight, I changed from 4th to 5th and nothing happened! I searched for 6th, 5th, 4th and all the way down to 1st but had no drive. The session was over for me then,” said a disappointed Sharpe.

Due to the lack of laps in practice two, the ASM-Howard Cardstream Falcon was put in the lower 50% for qualifying. After an average run on the first set of tyres, Sharpe went back out to put in his time on new tyres – but a slight vibration through the steering meant that his best time for qualifying was set early and earned Sharpe 3rd position in the lower 50% and ending up 17th on the grid. “A frustrating qualifying session for me as I would have liked to be in the top ten at least but things didn’t go my way”, said Sharpe.

Starting 17th on the grid was going to be a challenge for Sharpe to work through the field. A solid start from Sharpe saw him retain his position and start working through the grid. A few incidents during the first laps gave a couple of positions away and, with Sharpe on a charge, he took a few places to find himself in the top ten and still pulling in the cars ahead. After a safety car restart, Sharpe followed the lapped car of Mark Howard through turns 2 and 3 and followed Mark close the wall into turn 4. Unfortunately, Slade was unsighted of this move and collided as he turned in for the apex, which resulted in him spinning and Sharpe continuing. V8 Supercars took the view to give Sharpe a post-race drive through penalty, which meant he was to drop from 4th, his position at the chequered flag, to 9th – a result that still earned him 13 Championship points.

Sharpe started Race 2 in 9th where he was to have a few battles and work his way up the field a little until a safety car restart where he got caught out by early brakers in front and took avoiding action which resulted in a spin for him. “I was simply unsighted and moved to avoid a big collision. We then ran the rest of the race with the pace of the front runners and slowly picked off a few cars to finish 16th. We now know that the car and myself have the pace to run at the front”, said Sharpe “and that’s the challenge for Wakefield Park.”