Global Record for Rylan
Denman’s Rylan Gray has made history at the opening round of the Monochrome GT4 Australia Series.
Teamed up with family friend George Miedecke in a brand new GT4 Ford Mustang for the first round of the series, Rylan secured the manufactures first pole position in the brand-new car.
“It was a pretty cool atmosphere, we had some of the Ford representatives there and I’d say they were pretty happy,” Rylan shared with a laugh when discussing what it was like when he got out of the car after qualifying.
“I was pretty interested in how the car would stack up against some of the other cars in the field.
“George went out and he did a pretty good job on a drying track and mixed conditions, he put it in fifth. Then it was my turn to hop in and we were good enough for a pole, then afterwards I was told it was the first global pole for the brand-new GT4 Ford Mustang which is a pretty cool record.”
George started Saturday’s race and made his way up to second before Rylan jumped behind the wheel with a focus on making up the four-second gap to the lead car.
With around five minutes to the end of the timed race, Rylan got past the McLaren to take the lead and maintained it to the chequered flag.
Race two was Rylan’s turn to start, and from pole position the pressure was on.
“It was a pretty cool feeling, even rolling up to the dummy grid first, leading the field, but I knew I just had to get off the line well with the horsepower of the big V8 and get to the first corner first and keep my head down from there and try and get a gap,” he shared.
“But the McLaren behind held on.”
In this class the top cars get additional time added to their mandatory pit stop length, for Rylan it was 15 seconds and their main competition, the McLaren, got 10 for finishing second.
While the McLaren got the jump on them in the pit stop, they were issued a penalty for an infringement as they made the way through the lane so the Miedecke Motor Group GT4 Ford Mustang was elevated to first place to take a clean sweep of the weekend.
-Jem Anshaw