Reynolds was the big mover in his Erebus Commodore in Sunday’s 45-lap race, making up places but a lowly 22nd starting position meant he only finished 14th.

“This is the best V8 car I have ever raced,” an upbeat Reynolds said.

“But we can’t get any qualifying speed.

“It’s just too hard to get to the front runners when you start so far back.

“It’s still early days and it’s good that we seem to have the race package sorted, but qualifying is just so important – one step at a time though.”

Reynolds still holds down 14th spot in the championship after a fine 12th in Saturday’s race earned him solid points over the weekend.

Over at BJR, it was a matter of close but not close enough to make any inroads on the championship leaders for Tim Slade and Jason Bright.

Slade had a solid start bringing his Freightliner commodore home in eighth on Saturday.

It could easily have been another top 10 finish on Sunday for the new BRJ signing but after making a good start he was pushed wide at the fast turn tow and dropped a number of places, then after a great drive back to 10^th, he made a rare error late in the race to put himself back to 13th.

“We didn’t seem to have the pace on Sunday as we did on Saturday so there’s still some work to do”, Slade said.

“Our race car is better than our qualifying car at the moment and we need to understand why that is.”

Slade’s teammate Jason Bright had similar tale to tell.

Having finished a solid 10th on Saturday, making up five places during the race, things were looking positive.

However  qualifying for the main event on Sunday was a frustrating affair when he could only get enough speed out his commodore for 17th on the grid.

His race turned bad quickly with contact with another car on the first lap giving him a puncture and sending him to the back of the field.