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Bathurst 12: True Blue Motorsport preview

UNFINISHED BUSINESS ON THE MOUNTAIN At the 2008 WPS Bathurst 12 Hour race, True Blue Motorsports made the headlines of the daily newspapers and featured as a lead item on most evening televisions news bulletins -- all for the wrong ...

Published: Jun 19, 2009, 7:36 PM

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UNFINISHED BUSINESS ON THE MOUNTAIN

At the 2008 WPS Bathurst 12 Hour race, True Blue Motorsports made the headlines of the daily newspapers and featured as a lead item on most evening televisions news bulletins -- all for the wrong reasons.

The team's Mazda 3 MPS crashed in dramatic and spectacular fashion, barrel rolling nine times and disintegrating into a fiery wreck with the driver, Len Cave from Cronulla, miraculously managing to emerge from the carnage of his own accord.

Cave was subsequently taken to hospital with broken ribs, concussion and extensive bruising. He is not racing this year, but good friend, co-driver and team owner Alan Shephard has put all that behind him and is back to claim unfinished business.

Shephard who is also a Cronulla resident, has rebuilt his team into a formidable top ten contender with a pair of BMW 130i production race cars and five drivers for this weekend's (February 20-22) WPS Bathurst 12 Hour on the famous Mt Panorama circuit.

With the cars prepared by specialists Ontrack Motorsport at Windsor and backed by GWS Personnel, The Shire Conveyancer and Queensland Home and Land Company, Shephard has a quality driver line up for the once around the clock event.

The long time production car driver will be joined by 2000 Commodore Cup Champion Christian D'Agostin who has also compete in four Bathurst 1000's for V8 Supercars. By contrast Peter O'Donnell is a relative newcomer but has raced the championship last year in preparation.

The second car will be piloted by Lauren Gray from Altona, Victoria who is another experienced production car campaigner and has the additional skills of racing in many rounds of the Australian Gold Star for Formula 3 cars.

She will be joined by John De Veth from Cambridge in New Zealand in his first visit to the famous mountain, and Queensland Lotus driver Rob Thomson.

Shephard who has raced four 24 Hour races plus the last two Bathurst 12 Hour endurances is excited and confident about the team's chances. "We basically had to start the championship season from scratch after February's disaster with that car being totally destroyed," he said.

"And then we were doing it two-fold with a pair of cars as well. Still it was a good season for us and has been just the right build-up for this weekend where I am sure a top ten finish will be on the cards," he added.

Class D -- Hot Hatch Performance Cars 27 BMW 130i -- Alan Shephard -- Christian D'Agostin -- Peter O'Donnell 28 BMW 130i -- Lauren Gray -- John De Veth -- Rob Thomson

-credit: tbm

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