Life in the fast lane with The Bottle O Racing star David Reynolds

51 Thoughts was privileged to interview V8 Supercar driver David Reynolds, he shared his views and opinions on the racing season he has had this far, how he thinks the Super Cheap Auto Bathurst 1000 will go, and how he came in to racing.

During the late 80’s and early 90’s Reynolds watched his father who by trade was a dentist, and on the weekend became his racing alter ego, drove an old Ford Cortina and then moved up to a Mark 1 and Mark 2 Ford Escort, and later a Mazda 323 Famila “I grew up watching him, and watching him work on his cars on the weekends in the garage, and then my brother got a racing kart…the following year I got one too, I was 5 or 6 years old, I was really young”

Like almost all Motorsport drivers, Reynolds had to go through the ranks to get to where he is today. David started out his racing career in formula Ford between 2002 to 2004, and won the Formula Ford title in 2004 with Sonic Racing. He then worked his way into in Carrera Cup a guy by the name of Rodney Dean who offered to sponsor David. David goes on to suggest that “Rodney Dean had a few team cars, and he sponsored me and one of his cars, I ended up driving for him for three years and I won the Carrera Cup in 2007…then I got picked up in 2006 by HSV which was like the Holden Young Lions team” The young David Reynolds full time V8 Supercar Motor Racing career didn’t start until 2009 with his first race at the Bundaberg Red Racing”

With Bathurst creeping up around the corner, as the longest race on the V8 Supercar calendar, drivers and co-drivers would have started thinking about their preparations leading in to the race. Preparations for Bathurst begin as soon as Sandown has finished. As a V8 Supercar fans we enjoy sitting down with a cold one and watching Bathurst, we enjoy watching on as the mountain tests every drivers limits.

As V8 Supercar fans we enjoy sitting down watching Bathurst, we enjoy watching the guys go down the famous Conrod straight at almost 300kph every single lap. However from a driver’s perspective David describes it a surreal experience. “The first time you go down there I was in a dirt old 996 cup car with an H-pattern; you had to use the clutch and everything. I think I got up to about 270 km/h and I thought I was flying, because you never reach that speed anywhere else with the walls that close to you.  However you do a similar sort of speed at Philip Island but its scenic and you have other things rather than the walls, you don’t really understand the perception of how fast you are going. But when you are going down conrod and you pass the hill you get real wide at over 270km/h it’s unbelievable and you certainly realise how fast you’re going.

As fans we enjoy watching the cars start the cars, watching the starts to see how our favourite race driver and car will get off the line. David suggests that he concentrates on his “starting procedure, You’ve got your throttle percentage, how much pressure you’re using in your line locker, and trying to plan it out, like where your clutch will drip and drag, and try and plan it out to the first corner but after the first corner everything changes. I always try and make a good start so it can make up for positions”

David has good expectations going into Bathurst this year and would really love to win this year. “Over the last two years I have been really fast and haven’t won, I nearly won it in 2012 but last year we were super-fast and probably should have won it. This year I want to capitalize on that and be in the top three or even win it.” David goes on to say that Bathurst 2012 was his favourite race so far because “What made it such a good race because he (Jamie Whincup) was out in front and I was 8-10% of fuel per lap so I could save up enough fuel for the end, but what I didn’t know at the time that my left rear tyre had started to delaminate, so I was fuel rich and tyre poor, whereas he was tyre rich and fuel poor”

Watching old footage from a race in the last season and being in the work shop, is all a part of how David Reynolds prepares for a big race, by using these simple tools that are available to him he is able to see where he can improve in his next race, as well as figure out other teams strategies, how their cars handle and visualization “stuff like that” ,by doing this as a part of his preparations he is able to get a heads up about what he expect from other drivers and maneuver around what they’ve got planned, as he says “unlike football we don’t kick a football around everyday to increase our skills, we only get four test days to think about it and visualizing, stuff like that”

David keeps fit by doing regular exercise, and competes in triathlons to maintain a healthy lifestyle for when he isn’t behind the wheel, he is currently preparing for the Noosa Triathlon held in the next couple of months. Reynolds maintains that a healthy diet is key in his “off-the-track” preparations, following a paleo style diet which is a strict diet of raw foods, no processed foods, or sugars kind of diet.

This year we watched as The Bottle O Racing Team had a tough time on the track, Reynolds came in to this season with hopes and aspirations that this year the team would be in front as he says “I knew this year was going to be a tough year for us” Especially since new kid on the block, Scott McLaughlin has being exceeding everybody’s expectations from Volvo this year.

Currently sitting at 10^th on the Championship board, we have seen in some races why the team is in that position, although tenth isn’t the best position we all know it’s better than last place! Bottle O has had troubles with the car, as well as Reynolds who told us that the car has had some issues under the hood, and even admits that he made mistakes taking corners through-out the season. We see many crashes throughout the races in the V8 Supercars competition, but we don’t see the “Real” effect it has on other drivers.