Albury Supercar driver Dave Reynolds set the fastest lap at last year’s Winton championship round, passing 11 cars on his way to sixth place in the Sunday race.
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It was a much needed top ten result for him and his Erebus Supercar team as they had struggled to find speed from their newly-purchased ex-Walkingshaw cars.
“Winton was a turning point for us last year, it was the first time we actually had a really good car and we raced really well,” Reynolds said.
“I had the fastest car on track and went from 17th to sixth.
“I think if we qualified up the front we probably could have won the race.”
The 2017 season has been a different story, with Reynolds currently sitting 11th in the championship, 304 points behind leader Fabian Coulthard, with numerous top ten placings and a third at Phillip Island last month.
Experienced engineer Alistair McVean joined Erebus late last year and has combined with Reynolds to make a formidable team.
They have scored strong results regardless of the type of track or surface, which is a key that all teams look for to give them consistency over the year to build a large bank of championship points.
Heading back to Winton this weekend, he is looking to be on the pace from first practice on Friday.
“They have resurfaced some areas of the track and that’s going to create different surfaces throughout the lap, so there’s the potential for every corner to be different,” Reynolds said.
“I’m pretty open-minded, it’s our test track, and, ideally, we would have tested there this year, but the schedule hasn’t allowed it, so it’s fair to say it will be like any other track we roll up to with no real advantage.
“It’s a high turning, high lateral-g track; even though they are shorter corners, you do spend a lot of time braking into the corner and accelerating away.
“You probably only spend 25 per cent of the lap at full throttle and a lot of time spent on the brakes and turning the wheel.
“It means if you make a mistake at turn one in qualifying, you can sometimes make it up during the rest of the lap because there are so many corners.”
Reynolds was very supportive of local up and coming racer Macauley Jones making his Supercar debut this weekend as wild card entry in a Brad Jones Racing (BJR) Commodore.
“It’s pretty cool of the category to have a couple of wild cards this weekend and cool for young drivers to have that opportunity,” he said.
“I think they will have done a magnificent job to be fighting up the front, but it is their test track, so it’s their best opportunity to go well.”
With the BJR team and Reynolds, the Border region has five cars on the grid for this weekend’s races.
