Oran Park qualifying report

BOWE JUST MISSES TOP TEN BUT THRILLED WITH IMPROVEMENT

Cat Racing star John Bowe may have missed out on qualifying in the top ten, but he was delighted with the improvement of his Ford Falcon AU at Oran Park in Sydney today.

Bowe was only 18th after the final practice session this morning, forcing some quick thinking from the team's technical squad.

Forced into the 2nd qualifying session for the slowest 50 per cent of the field, Bowe leap-frogged seven competitors to be 11th on the grid for tomorrow's opening race.

"We made up a lot of time, but the funny thing was, we probably could have improved even further," Bowe said.

"This may sound strange, but I am very happy to be 11th - especially after being 18th in the morning.

"Obviously we want to be first, but if the car is off the pace when you first hit the track at these sprint rounds, it is very hard to pull back the field.

"We made some major changes which significantly improved the car. It is a real credit to the team because we were in real trouble this morning.

"It is still not perfect, but we are moving in the right direction."

Bowe's Cat Racing Falcon was plagued with oversteer during the opening practice sessions.

His qualifying position of 11th is also a big improvement on last year when the Tasmanian started the first race from position 17.

"I got a good run on my first set of qualifying tyres, but we actually picked up a bit of understeer after that," Bowe said.

"We also had an alternator problem during the session and we were running against the clock to see if the battery was going to hold its charge.

"Getting into the top ten was a big possibility at one stage, but we couldn't quite pull it off."

Bowe is looking forward to tomorrow's three races with an "inverted top six" format being introduced for the first time tomorrow for the second race.

"The finishing positions of the top six will be reversed for the start of race two," Bowe said.

"If we can make a strong start, I can tell you the action will be pretty willing if we can get up around 6th or 7th spot in the first race.

"It would certainly be nice to start off the front row for race two."

QUALIFYING <pre> 1. - Skaife (Holden) - 1:07.832 2. - Tander (Holden) - 1:08.129 3. - Lowndes (Holden) - 1:08.167 4. - Seton (Ford) - 1:08.169 5. - Murphy (Holden) - 1:08.196 6. - Ingall (Holden) - 1:08.211 7. - Kelly (Holden) - 1:08.312 8. - Longhurst (Ford) - 1:08.319 9. - Radisich (Ford) - 1:08.343 10. - Richards (Holden) - 1:08.391 11. - BOWE (CAT FORD) - 1:08.567 </pre> TIMETABLE <pre> SUNDAY, JULY 30 9.30am - Warm-up 11.30am - Race One - 17 laps 1.30pm - Race Two - 17 laps 3.30pm - Race Three - 17 laps