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Garland Looking for Consistent Results at Sandown
Kody Garland is aiming for a consistent weekend in his Motor Traders’ Association of New South Wales and Valvoline backed Peugeot 308 TCR at Sandown for round five of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia.The 23 year old is coming off the back of his first ever top five finish in S5000, coming in just his second round with the category, at The Bend Motorsport Park.“Seat time in anything is crucial when you’ve only got seven rounds,” said Garland.“Being able to get that time in the S5000 is an even bigger benefit, they are such hard cars to drive, and you need to be really refined in your skills to drive those cars quickly. That should hopefully translate to the TCR where things will be a little bit slowed down in comparison.”Garland’s previous round in TCR Australia saw promising speed throughout the weekend for the GRM driver, but results were limited by power steering issues throughout the three races. The category returns to Sandown where dry running has been hard to come by, with the last dry race for TCR at the Victorian venue coming in 2019. The track is a favourable one to the GRM Peugeot’s, where the team secured two race victories last year.A trip to Sandown in 2022 with the Aussie Racing Cars netted Garland a race victory and third overall for the round. “It’s a track that I quite enjoy and one where we have good form in the past,” said Garland.“There’s a lot of time to be lost over the kerbs in turns two and three, but it’s tricky to set the car up for that because you also need that high speed stability around the back of the circuit coming down the hill. The DNF last round hurt us a bit in the points, so we are really looking to make up for lost ground there. The focus needs to be on getting some consistent results and a clean weekend.“If we get some rain I’m not to fazed, it’s a level playing field for everyone and most of the field were around last year when we raced in some pretty wild conditions. It will be interesting if it’s dry however, as there isn’t a whole lot of mileage for these cars in those conditions at Sandown,” concluded Garland.Round five of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia takes place from September 8-10 at Sandown as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries.