David Reynolds' weekend went from good to bad at the 2019 Supercars season finale at Newcastle on the weekend.
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The Albury export drove what has become a trademark fast, clean race on Saturday to finish fourth, moving up three places after starting seventh.
Newcastle's beachfront track is notoriously hard to pass on, but Reynolds showed his race craft, doing it effortlessly and cleanly during the 95-lap event.
Reynolds was one of the first front-runners to make a stop at the end of lap 10.
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Heading into his second stop on lap 48, Reynolds was being slowed by Cam Waters, but a great pit stop by the Erebus crew saw Reynolds squeak out in front of the Mustang.
With the fastest car on track, he charged to fourth by the chequered flag.
"Your day is won and lost in qualifying. We qualified seventh and went forward a couple of spots, got lucky when Whincup went spearing off, but it's about giving qualifying your best shot and starting on the front row to have a go for a podium," Reynolds said.
"It's such a taxing race too. Every year you come here you don't comprehend how hard the race is."
Sunday's qualifying didn't prove any better with Reynolds again starting seventh, and it proved costly.
After getting a good start, he moved by Scott Pye on the run to the first corner only to be squeezed into the fence, causing serious damage to his Penrite racer and dropping him a lap down.
He eventually finished the race 16th.
"It was a long race after that. It was a real shame as I had the fastest car on the track and could have gone better than yesterday (Saturday)," Reynolds said.
"Not the way we wanted to finish the year for sure. But having said that, we have a good year again, so I'm looking forward to going better next year."
Reynolds finished the year sixth after placing fifth in 2018.
Brad Jones Racing had some mixed results with Tim Slade coming home ninth on Saturday and then driving a great race to be third on Sunday for his and the team's second podium of the year.
Teammate Nick Percat had an unusually average weekend, finishing 14th and 9th, having had a very consistent year to wind up ninth in the championship, whilst Slade was 15th.
It is possibly Slade's last race for the Albury outfit, with negotiations for his contract for 2020 still not finalised.
Team boss Brad Jones said an announcement is coming soon, however, strong rumours have connected 2018 Super 2 Champion Todd Hazelwood to BJR for 2020.