Rylan on the Right Track for Supercars
Just days after his 17th birthday next week, Rylan Gray will make his Supercars debut behind the wheel of a Tickford Racing Super3 entry on the streets of Adelaide.
“To be associated with Tickford Racing is a pretty cool, to be from a small country town like Denman and to be with a team so iconic in the supercars world,” Rylan told The Hunter River Times.
“It’s been really cool working with the engineers and see how a real professional team runs, you just gain so much experience and information from them.”
To paint a picture of the trajectory Rylan is on, if we were talking in Group 21 terminology, Super3 is the Under 18s, with Super2 being reserves and first grade is the main game – Supercars. Super2 and Super3 cars are the previous generations of Supercars technology handed down the line, ie, this year’s Super2 are last years Supercars.
A rule change mid-season opened the door for drivers younger than 17 to drive supercars at test days, and that is just what Rylan has been doing between Toyota Gazoo 86’s rounds.
“We started off by just getting as many laps as we can and obviously learning the car as much as possible to prepare for the Adelaide race,” he explained.
“Then over the past few test days we’ve been experimenting with car setup and longer runs to simulate race runs, to feel what it’s like to have the tyres go off during a race and make car adjustments.”
Rylan said it should be fun taking to the streets of Adelaide for the first time, even with the challenges of a street circuit being painted lines, different road surfaces and manhole covers that impact the cars behaviour around the course.
The VAILO Adelaide 500 is the final round for the Supercars Championship for 2023 and runs from November 23 to 26.
-JEM ANSHAW