After a Supercar career spanning nine years, Albury’s David Reynolds finally comes to Winton Motor Raceway this weekend with a car that can win.

Reynolds has plenty of history at Winton with the North-East Victorian circuit being the place where he got behind the wheel of a car for the first time in his life.

“The first car I drove here was my Mum’s WRX back in 2001– it still had my L Plates on it,” he said.

It’s a far cry from the 500kW Supercar which goes from 0-100kmh in 3.4 seconds that he will jump into on Friday.

Reynolds has had a strong start to the year with one race win, four podiums and a bevy of top 10 finishes to sit third in the title race – 168 points away from the leader, Scott McLaughlin.

But he needs to keep up the momentum to stay in championship contention.

“Winton hasn’t been that kind to me in the past,” he said.

“I’ve set the fastest lap a few times but have struggled to qualify well to really challenge.

“Last year we started 14th and came fourth but I’d love to win it.

“It’s just a tricky track; you are constantly turning, constantly braking and constantly accelerating away, so you’re asking a lot of the car and yourself.

“The races are 200km but Winton is the slowest average speed of all the tracks we go to, so you take the longest time to get to the end.

“Add in that there’s lots of corners and its high grip.”

Reynolds has a reputation for being laid-back, and he’s no stranger to leading and winning championships, but admits that being in contention at this level is different.

“Yeah - of course it’s different,” he said.

“When I won the Formula Ford title that came down to the last lap of the last race and so did the Porsche Carrera Cup title.

“But this category is so fundamentally harder – the cars are hard to drive, they’re hard to set up, there’s pit stops, the races are longer and there’s a lot more attention and focus on everything.”

With success has come a lot more media attention too.

“Most of the time I’m pretty cool with it; it’s talking to people which I like doing anyway, but it can take your focus away,” he said.

“After winning Bathurst last year I had to do a week and a half of full on media and didn’t get time to recover from the race before the next event at the Gold Coast.”