He may have treated it as he would any other race meeting, but Denman’s Rylan Gray has marked another significant step in his motorsport career when he lined up on the Supercars Championship grid in Darwin.
He ran as a wildcard for the event as preparation for the Bend 500 and Bathurst 1000 enduros that he and Tickford teammate Lochie Dalton will contest later in the year.
“I think I sort of went in expecting a bit more, but you never know until you actually do it how hard it is being in the top motor racing category in Australia,” Rylan reflected.
“We probably struggled a little bit for car speed over the weekend, but a few mistakes in qualifying had us starting further back than what we probably should have so it was a little out of sync to how we were in the races because we had good race pace.
“I think we did a decent job for the first weekend in the category.”
Rylan finished 21st in all three races, and his lap times were competitive compared to the top cars but it was unfortunate that qualifying had him so far back that he couldn’t capitalise on the speed.
The other challenge is the significant difference between his championship leading Super2 car and the Gen3 car he is now attempting to conquer.
“It’s not as big as aero in the Gen3, no big wing, no big under tray that produces the downforce, so a lot relies on the tyre compound to generate grip, and Gen3 cars are a lot different ergonomically for the driver as well,” he explained.
“The brake pedals are a lot softer, so you don’t have as much feeling, and the steering racks are quite a bit different, so it’s a lot of new feelings that you’ve got to get used to. It was sort of hard in the first practice, but as the weekend went on, I got more used to it.”
Up next for Rylan, after another trip to Melbourne for pit stop and driver change training and other prep work with his team, will be the next Dunlop Super2 round in Townsville on July 11 to 13, then back into the Supercar for The Bend 500 in September and the Bathurst 1000 in October.
- Jem Anshaw
