BY JEM ANSHAW
Rylan Gray has conquered Mount Panorama, winning the second Dunlop Super2 race of the Bathurst 1000 weekend.
“Bathurst is the place you want to win, it’s the big stage, the big event on the calendar,” he told The Hunter River Times.
“I knew going in to qualifying in the weekend we would be strong, even when practice was wet and we didn’t have any dry laps, I knew our cars would be fast, so we’d be at the front somewhere. So it was really, really cool to get a win.”
Rylan’s main competition for the two races were his Tickford teammates, Lochie Dalton and Nash Morris, which posed an interesting predicament.
“Obviously you can’t run into your teammate, so that’s probably the first rule, but you’re also not getting paid to be there so you can race them like anyone else as well,” Rylan shared with a laugh when asked about the challenge.
“The racing is always hard between us, it’s never really unfair so you know that level of respect is always there.”
That mutual respect and friendship also played a significant role in the other part of Rylan’s weekend, when he paired up with Lochie to make their debut in the Bathurst 1000.
“We had a big weekend, a big week leading up to it, we had so many sessions, so much track time it’s pretty much double of what we would usually do, or probably even more,” Rylan said of doing double duties.
“By Sunday the body was feeling it, I was definitely sore, but when I got in the car everything felt pretty good so I just focused on the job at hand.
“The race definitely threw everything at us, it wasn’t a boring one, there was weather, there was a lot of safety cars, a lot of action. So definitely not a boring one to have as a first Bathurst.”
The pair started at the back of the grid, but through consistent smooth laps by both drivers they were able to keep circulating and work their way up to finish 13th.
“The race was a lot better than how we qualified, we just stayed out of trouble all day, which was the main thing,” Rylan said.
“A lot of people made a lot of mistakes, and we didn’t make mistakes that would really hurt us, we just chipped away all day.
“We made up 14 spots in the end and just kept it clean, so it was pretty cool to finish that far up from where we started in our first Bathurst.”
Rylan started the race when there was sun and wind, but by the end Lochie was faced with very low visibility across the top of the mountain when thick fog descended though the persistent rain.
“It was pretty nerve wracking in that last couple of laps, but I knew Lochie had been out there for a good amount of time that he knew the track condition, so you know he’s going to drive around safely,” he said.
“Our goal was to finish the race, and he did everything he could to get it to the finish line and I think we achieved something pretty good in the end.”
The Super2 championship wraps up in November in Adelaide, where Rylan will hopefully secure the title for 2025.
