David Reynolds and his co-driver Luke Youlden drove themselves, and their team Erebus, to the podium and into history by taking out the winners podium on the Supercheap Auto 2017 podium at Bathurst today.
The great race, lived up to it’s reputation of a tough, eventful and unpredictable race where no one can foresee the end result of the 161 lap, typically 6 – 7 endurance race.
In fact, it was in the final 6 laps that David Reynolds took the lead to bring home the unlikely win and first Bathurst podium for himself and Team Erebus.
Erebus team boss Betty Klimenko, who is the heiress to the Westfield fortune, was too jubilant for interview following her driver’s shock win over race favourites Scott Pye from Walkinshaw Racing and Fabian Coulthard from DJR Team Penske. The latter who drove a flawless race picking up well earned points towards the championship.
Being one of the most wet Bathurst 1000’s in history, the challenge was for all drivers to stay on the `clean’ race line through the race. This made overtaking and passes difficult as of course that requires the faster driver to leave the race line and enter the wet part of the track whilst wearing slick tyres.
In fact the race pretty much took off on the 145th lap when Shane Van Gisbergen spun out to leave the front spot available.
Ford champions Chaz Mostert and Cameron Waters held their own for the majority of the race and it was disappointing to see them both get caught up in a scuffle with Garth Tander . Tander had spun from the line a little earlier and re-entered on the gravel to force the line up of cars to re-arrange. In this case, he entered across Mostert who collided with Tander and then bounced to clip Waters forcing him into the wall and off with a damaged rear wing.
However, this was the golden opportunity for Reynolds who raced past Nick Percat to steal the lead with 15 critical laps left to run.
Van Gisbergen put up a fight for pole position, however a spin sent him backwards to fight it out for third before slipping back further.
Reynolds then made his six lap sprint after a safety car was called and managed to hold the lead to win the trophy and a glorious career defining result.
But just quietly, I know it’s somehow become an Aussie tradition, but that’s really a nasty thing to drink champagne out of a shoe …
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