George Gutierrez overcomes challenges of the mountain

George Gutierrez has overcome the challenges of the mountain to remain in the title fight heading into the final round of the SuperUtes Series for 2022.

Overcoming both the treacherous weather and a mechanical issue, the South Australian managed to salvage a handful of top-five finishes at Mount Panorama in the support races for the Bathurst 1000 to remain in contention in the point standings heading to the decider on the streets of the Gold Coast at the end of the month.

After practice in the wet, Gutierrez managed to qualify fifth in his first dry laps in his Holden Colorado SuperUte around the iconic circuit.

Although it wasn’t without a scare, a spin at The Esses without touching the notorious concrete walls making the highlight reel from the weekend.

Friday’s opening race of the weekend saw the 25-year-old show solid pace, but was unable to make any inroads on the utes at the front of the field to finish sixth.

On a wet but drying track Saturday morning, Gutierrez scored a fifth-place finish in the second race of the weekend.

Whilst in the afternoon’s third race of the weekend, he would suffer a fuel pump failure while comfortably on track for another fifth place, unable to finish the race or score points.

Race 4 held in the build-up to the Great Race, saw Gutierrez reward his teams efforts in repairing the Holden Colorado fuel system overnight charging from 12th on the grid to take another fifth-place finish for the weekend after just two laps of green flag racing, salvaging just enough points to remain in title contention heading into the final round.

“The weather most definitely threw a spanner in the works, but we did the best we could with the conditions and still managed to get a couple of top-five results,” Gutierrez said.

“A massive thank you to my team, sponsors and everyone behind the scenes that help make this possible.

“We couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors.”

“We’ve got a short turnaround before we head to the streets of Surface Paradise, but we’ll be ready to take a trip up to the, hopefully, sunny Gold Coast for Round 6.

“Let’s end our rookie year on a high.”

The next round of the SuperUtes Series will take place on the streets of the Gold Coast as part of the support program for the Repco Supercars Championship Gold Coast 500, October 28-302022.

As always, George would like to thank all his supporters especially Go Sunny Solar, Burson Auto Parts, JC Energy, So Cloudy, Get Displays, MM Electrical Marleston, D&S Resources, and Delta Crash Repairs.