AU gets its last run with Waldren.

The last of the real privateers, Walden Motorsport, completed its first ever stint in the V8 Supercar Championship, with a solid showing in last weekend's final round at Eastern Creek, the BigPond Grand Finale.

Twenty-two year old Garth Walden at the wheel of the team's AU Falcon, despite cooking a clutch at the start of race one on Saturday evening and retiring, put in a solid performance in the two 150 klm races conducted in stifling heat on Sunday.

It was a nostalgic weekend for Ford, while the Blue Oval took the top three placings - Marcus Ambrose first, Paul Radisich second, Russell Ingall third - all in BA Falcons, Walden became the last person to drive an AU in a V8 Championship round, as they are ineligible to be used from '05 onwards.

In the first practice session on Friday in wet conditions, Walden was in the top 15, but then as the track dried the bigger teams got ahead. During that session, the Walden car was a half second quicker than Ambrose in sector 1, a second slower in sector 2, and a massive 3 seconds slower in sector 3.

In an attempt to get the car faster in the final sector they made massive changes overnight in hope, but then for Saturday morning's warm up, an oil line broke as they were leaving the pits, putting them out of the session.

It was therefore left to the qualifying session to test the new set-up, but unfortunately it hadn't worked. In fact it had gone the other way, and was much slower, that much so, they only qualified for the race by 2/100th of a second.

The set-up was then put back close to how it had been for Friday, but in race one on Saturday evening, the clutch disintegrated off the line forcing an early retirement.

Sunday's warm-up, and the car felt better than it had been in qualifying, so they opted to start the race that way. However despite a great start, it started to fry the tyres, and the youngster did a good job to bring it home.

At the end of the race, he finished 32nd, a lap down, as were Paul Dumbrell, Anthony Tratt, Alex Davison, Owen Kelly Lee Holdsworth, Dale Brede and Christian D'Agostin.

It was then back to the drawing board and yet another major change to the seup, but this time it was perfect, and Walden drove brilliantly to race with many many drivers from much bigger name teams.

He eventually finished 32nd, a lap down along with Owen Kelly in the WPS Falcon, and a lap ahead of Mark Winterbottom in the Orrcon Racing Falcon, but he had done a magnificent job.

Walden Motorsport joined the series in the Queensland round on July 4th using the Romano Racing franchise, then competed in rounds at Winton, Oran Park, Sandown Bathurst and now Eastern Creek, finishing with 185 points.

Team Manager Brian Walden said they had almost finalised plans for 2005.

"We're more than happy with the way Garth performed on the weekend. I just wish we could have had the set-up right for him earlier.

"But now, we must look ahead, and it's looking really exciting for next season. Hopefully, we can make an announcement later this week," he said.